With the additions of Bowie House Hotel, Hotel Drover, and more, Fort Worth is looking to draw a surplus of foot traffic over the next few years. According to Visit Fort Worth, the city's convention and visitors bureau, the new hotels currently under construction will add more than 1,700 rooms, projecting a total of 17,828 hotel rooms in Fort Worth by 2021 — and this is not including hotels still in the planning stage (like Bowie House).
It wasn’t too long ago when roles were reversed, and Fort Worth faced a hotel shortage. According to a 2017 WFAA interview with Mitch Whitten of Visit Fort Worth, the city lacked over 1,400 rooms and lost millions in convention business as a consequence of having no space to hold visitors. With the opening of the Dickies Arena and the expansion of the convention center, its demand has been more prevalent than ever.
“Prior to the pandemic, we were turning away convention and meeting business because the convention center was undersized, and the hotel inventory was inadequate to meet the demand at that time,” Bob Jameson, president and CEO of Visit Fort Worth, wrote in an email to Fort Worth Magazine.
The effects of COVID-19 haven’t helped the city’s shortage problems either. According to Jameson, funding for convention-oriented hotels is partially made up of Hotel Occupancy Taxes. And because of COVID-19 and low travel, the financial support for new hotels has been significantly delayed.
But things are looking up for the hospitality industry. Jameson is confident in the expansion and how it’ll positively enhance the city's opportunities.
“People will travel again,” Jameson says. “As consumer confidence grows, we’re going to find ourselves at a point where we will need additional hotel inventory if we are to fully support the convention center.”
Jo Ellard, owner of Bowie House Hotel, is up for the challenge. The boutique hotel is set to open in the Cultural District in 2022, just minutes away from the museums and Dickies Arena.
“There is nothing like this hotel in this part of town,” Ellard says. “One of the reasons we steered toward this direction is because it’ll enhance the visitor appeal to Fort Worth and the Cultural District specifically.”
However, with all of the upcoming projects and hotel construction, some believe this will negatively affect neighborhoods. Some residents in the Camp Bowie area are anxious about the addition of the Bowie House, citing noise and excess traffic.
“We’ve looked at projects in other cities similar to this that have taken a rise in neighborhoods, and it’s our observation that they enhance the neighborhood in many ways, such as the economic and property value,” Ellard says. “This is a large retail area, so [Camp Bowie District Inc, a private nonprofit organization dedicated to revitalizing the area] itself is a big supporter of this project. We’ve gone to great lengths to make sure the neighborhood is accommodated.”
Despite the setbacks and an unclear future, Fort Worth continues to make room for visitors and guests. The 16-story AC Hotel by Marriott, for example, is Sundance Square’s latest accommodation, adding more than 200 rooms to the downtown area this past September.
According to Jillian Lehmann, director of sales and marketing, the AC Hotel remains confident in Fort Worth’s ability to draw visitors.
“Fort Worth is an amazing market that offers endless demand for a variety of travelers,” she wrote in an email to Fort Worth Magazine. “Major corporations, the Fort Worth Convention Center, Dickies Arena and, of course, Sundance Square are great anchors to drive our business.”