The Fairmont Austin is a 37-story hotel located on 101 Red River St, in Downtown

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

. Groundbreaking for the project began on November 3, 2014. The hotel, at , is the largest of the Fairmont hotel chain. The hotel tops out at tall, surpassing Austin's previous tallest hotel, the Hilton Austin Hotel. The Fairmont Austin also features a

skyway A skyway, skybridge, skywalk, or sky walkway is an elevated type of pedway connecting two or more buildings in an urban area, or connecting elevated points within mountainous recreational zones. Urban skyways very often take the form of Cover ...

connection to the

Austin Convention Center The Neal Kocurek Memorial Austin Convention Center is a multi-purpose convention center located in Austin, Texas. The building is the home of the Texas Rollergirls, and was also home to the Austin Toros basketball team, until their move to the ...

. The Fairmont Austin also features five restaurants: Good things, a coffee shop with quick bites. Rules and Regs, the tapas bar and restaurant on the 7th floor pool deck. Revue, a multi outlet style restaurant modeled after a movie set. Fulton, a

craft cocktail The craft cocktail movement is a social movement spurred by the cocktail renaissance, a period of time in the late 20th and early 21st century characterized by a revival and re-prioritization of traditional recipes and methods in the bar industr ...

bar and restaurant which features live music each and every night. And finally, Garrison, a modern american, post oak, open flame, luxe dining experience.

History

The groundbreaking for the Fairmont Austin was held on November 3, 2014. The hotel was expected to reach completion in late January to early February 2018 but was delayed until March 2018. The hotel opened on March 5, 2018, in time for

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

Architecture

The Fairmont Austin was designed by architecture firm

Gensler Gensler is a global design and architecture firm headquartered in San Francisco, California. It is the largest architecture firm in the world by revenue and number of architects. In 2022, Gensler generated $1.785 billion in revenue, the most o ...

, with interiors furnished by

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

-based interior designer Warren Sheets. The hotel features a $6 million 33-foot aerial

connecting to the

, designed by

Thomas Phifer Thomas Phifer (born 1953 in South Carolina) is an American architect based in New York City. Phifer is perhaps best known for his design of the Glenstone Museum expansion in Potomac, Maryland, the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North ...

. The building is topped with a 170-foot lighted spire, the maximum height allowed by the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...

. The building's crown features a band of color-changing

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corresp ...

lighting, which is often changed for holidays and special events. During periods of low occupancy, the hotel blocks off rooms on the southern side of the building and replaces the lighting in select rooms with color-changing LED bulbs to create images on the building's facade, including the

Texas Longhorns The Texas Longhorns are the athletic teams representing the University of Texas at Austin. The teams are sometimes referred to as the Horns and take their name from Longhorn cattle that were an important part of the development of Texas, and ...

logo during

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

games, a giant

jack-o'-lantern A jack-o'-lantern (or jack o'lantern) is a carved lantern, most commonly made from a pumpkin, or formerly a root vegetable such as a mangelwurzel, rutabaga or turnip. Jack-o'-lanterns are associated with the Halloween holiday. Its name comes ...

for Halloween, and a wrapped present during

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...

References

External links

Official site
Skyscraper hotels in Austin, Texas Gensler buildings {{Texas-struct-stub

History

Architecture

See also

References

External links