HOUSTON: Hyatt Comes to Hot Galleria
If you truly shop 'til you drop, to the point of needing bed-rest, then you're in luck. A Hyatt Regency has broken ground in the Galleria Plaza complex. SongyHighRoads (above, its CEO David Songy) and The Carlyle Group purchased the site earlier this year and are building the 14-story, 325-room hotel. Songy COO Todd Nocerini tells us the hotel is step one in upgrading that whole complex and making it true Class-A, mixed-use. It already includes two office buildings totaling nearly 400k SF and almost 30k SF of retail on 7.6 acres, and Todd tells us it can add more retail and other uses.
The Galleria is one of the top hospitality submarkets in the country, with average hotel occupancy over 77%. The new property, above, should be a welcome addition; most existing full-service hotel inventory there is over 20 years old. And Todd's excited to bring the Hyatt Regency brand there, including its 24/7 marketplace concept. The 260k SF property is designed by Gensler and being built by McCarthy Construction. It'll include 15k SF of meeting space and will be managed by Aimbridge Hospitality when it delivers in late summer 2015. Todd tells us Songy is eying several other opportunities in Houston.
