The Sheraton Dallas, the second-largest hotel in the brand, is part of the Dallas Downtown Collection. Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Sheraton Dallas
Marriott International has joined the Texas trend of grouping city hotels together in order to ease booking processes for meetings and events.
Following on the heels of a group of hotels that was created in April to help planners find space while the Austin Convention Center closes for four years for an expansion, White Lodging has followed suit with the AustinPlace Hotel Collection. The developer, which represents 22 percent of the central business district's hotel rooms, aims to fill the temporary void of meeting space with a large number of Marriott hotels, and meeting space that nearly reaches the size of the existing convention center.
AustinPlace offers planners a centralized connection to 10 downtown Marriott-brand hotels within a walkable 10-minute loop, and features more than 220,000 square feet of meeting space. Meeting space includes two purpose-ready exhibition halls, nine ballrooms, and dozens of options for indoor and rooftop group dining and entertaining spaces — from fast-casual to fine dining.
“The sheer size and convenience of our downtown Austin hotel portfolio is unmatched, and allows us to serve in-house groups of all sizes in the absence of the convention center,” said Chris Anderson, White Lodging’s chief commercial officer. “It’s similar to what we already do with other urban collections of hotels and restaurants across our portfolio — creating a single point of contact and seamless planning for meeting planners across a variety of brands and price points.”
AustinPlace hotels include the 1,012-room JW Marriott Austin and the 613-room Austin Marriott Downtown. The collection spans luxury, premium, Autograph and select brand hotels.
“AustinPlace is not only set up to make it easy for meeting planners now, but it also strategically sets us up for the anticipated influx of business to come following the game-changing rebuild of the Convention Center,” said Anderson. “It’s also equipped for reinvestment through renovations and additional hotels.”
White Lodging recently announced that the 258-room Hotel Trinity, an Autograph Collection property, will be the 11th hotel in the AustinPlace Collection once construction is completed at the end of 2026.
Linking up in Dallas
Marriott also is grouping three prominent Dallas hotels — the 1,841-room Sheraton Dallas, the 416-room Dallas Marriott Downtown, and 267-room JW Marriott Arts District Hotel — into the Dallas Downtown Connection. This new collaboration provides planners with versatile meeting spaces, upscale amenities, overflow guest rooms and a wide range of services.
Linked by sky bridge, the Sheraton, which is the second-largest in the brand, and the downtown Marriott are just minutes from the JW Marriott and combined provide 292,000 square feet of meeting space, 81 breakout spaces, 2,615 guest rooms, 9 restaurants and bars, including 2 grab-and-go markets, and easy access to several parks with outdoor event options.