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If all goes as planned, the Omni Fort Worth Hotel will expand south to Lancaster, on a site that includes the former Tarrant County College administration building, pictured in the foreground.
A $200 million plan to expand the Omni Fort Worth Hotel in downtown is back on the rails, city officials said during a City Council work session on Tuesday.
A plan to build a second tower south to West Lancaster Avenue, which will add 400 rooms over a city block, and a parking garage were in the works before the pandemic halted those plans. On the site currently is the May Owen Center, Tarrant County College’s former administration building. Those offices are being moved to the Trinity River campus.
Omni is under contract with the college to buy the property, Robert Sturns, the city’s director of economic development, said during a presentation to the City Council during a work session. A parking garage will be built on another piece of property owned by the college.
The expansion is expected to be complete by the end of 2026, Sturns added. Once finished, the Omni Fort Worth will have more than 1,000 rooms over two blocks on Houston Street.
“That Omni is bringing this project back is just an indicator that the overall health of the market is strong and getting better,” Sturns said.
Cost of the project is $217 million. The city will kick in a $53 million grant, as well as convey a small piece of property on Lancaster. City officials project that tax revenue collected from a hotel occupancy tax will total more than $74 million over a 20-year projection, in addition to more than $28 million in property taxes.
The $53 million grant is tied to a variety of commitments, including the requirement that Omni must spend a minimum of $202.3 million on the expansion with 15% of hard and soft costs paid to minority and women-owned contractors, Sturns said.
The parking garage, which will feature 200 spaces, will be owned by the city and leased to the hotel, which will be responsible for constructing and operating it. The hotel will have an option to buy it after 10 years.
The new tower, which will be smaller than the original 33-floor tower on Houston, will create 50,000 square feet of meeting space, and 15,000 square feet for a restaurant facing Lancaster.
The project is the latest in the city’s hopes and dreams for the Lancaster corridor as a walkable, mixed-use district in the south of downtown.
It started with the move south of the Interstate 30 overpass, which for decades crossed over Lancaster. Over the years, the city has infused millions in upgrades through a Tax Increment Financing District.
Most recently, in April 2020, the construction finished on the $53 million Lamar-Hemphill Connector project, connecting downtown to the Near Southside. The need to connect Lancaster with neighborhoods south of the railroad tracks had been in planners' blueprints for years.
The elephant in the room is the Wyatt Hedrick-designed, eight-story T&P Warehouse, built in 1931 but vacant for five decades. It was built as part of a three-building complex, including the post office and the T&P Railway terminal.
The building is owned by Cleopatra Investments of Dallas, which says it has redevelopment plans.
Local officials are urging them to begin those.