Dallas Convention Center Hotel breaks ground
February 26, 2010
In June 2008, the Balfour Beatty Construction team in Dallas received welcome news that they’d been awarded construction of the $325 million Dallas Convention Center Hotel. But it wasn’t until September 15 that the team finally celebrated, along with the city, the long-awaited ground breaking for the new hotel.
Proposed as a city-owned hotel, rather than a privately-funded one, construction of the facility faced growing opposition from many in the surrounding community. So, all progress ceased on the project until a city-wide vote, held last May, resulted in a narrow (51-49 percent) victory – which allowed planning for the city-owned hotel to proceed.
For its next hurdle, however, the city needed to successfully sell almost $500 million in bonds at a competitive rate to provide the actual funds to start construction. Unfavorable market conditions indicated that selling those bonds at the target rate could take quite some time. But happily, the City of Dallas succeeded in selling the bonds, and at a better interest rate than they had been targeting.
Balfour Beatty, in a three way joint venture with HJ Russell and Pegasus, is part of the master developer team for the project. This is not a new partnership for the three companies. The Balfour/Russell/Pegasus team first established a successful relationship by working together at the DFW Airport project between 2002 and 2007. In addition to leading the design-build process, Balfour Beatty is also providing preconstruction and estimating services for the facility.
The 1.14 million square-foot, 23-story hotel will be a 4-star, 1,000-room facility, with 80,000 square feet of meeting space and ballrooms, retail, multiple restaurants, a sports bar, spa and fitness center. It will be located adjacent to (and connected via a elevated pedestrian bridge to) the existing Dallas Convention Center and operated by Omni Hotels.
Construction is set to complete in 28 months.