Convention Center Hotel still on track for Downtown Abilene

ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) — As the pandemic slows the momentum of some new businesses, the Convention Center Hotel remains on track for Downtown Abilene.

With this continued progress, the city is also preparing plans to reconfigure North Sixth Street and close part of it down.

The hotel is expected to be a DoubleTree by Hilton, and is currently in the design process.

The original plan was to break ground by September, but Assistant City Manager Michael Rice says that may not happen.

“With the challenges, with the economic situation that’s going on today, there’s some things that we need to wait for. Things need to fall in place before we can actually pull that trigger,” Rice says. “We will be able to draw off of this synergy that allows both of the facilities to work in concert with each other, this hotel’s not just going to have hotel rooms, but it’s going to have convention space as well and it’s all going to be centrally located so that it actually provides additional energy and growth to the downtown area.”

With this new building, it will also bring about roadway reconfiguration.

“This portion of Cypress Street will go from one way to two way. This being the front door of the hotel allows people to come around, pull over, drop people off and then continue on and then they’ll be able to turn back to the right of the parking area, which will be located in this area,” says Rice.

Rice expects the process to take about 1.5 to 2 years to fully complete.

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