N.C.-based Winston Hotels to purchase Riverview Towers

The Riverview Towers at 111 Soledad St. is being sold to Winston Hotels of Raleigh, N.C. Taken Oct. 3, 2019. Photo by Ben Olivo | Heron — Riverview Towers at 111 Soledad St. will be converted into a mixed-use building. *Photo by Ben Olivo | Heron*

North Carolina-based Winston Hotels is in the process of purchasing the Riverview Towers office building at 111 Soledad St., and plans to convert most of the floors into a pair of hotels.

The Historic and Design Review Commission on Wednesday granted final approval for the renovation plans, which include 342 hotel rooms, three floors of office space and a rooftop bar. Winston Hotels is buying the building from S.A.-based Primera Partners.

The deal is likely to close this year, with renovation work beginning in early 2020, said Mathew A. Jalazo, Winston Hotels’ executive vice president of development. The renovation is expected to take two years to complete. Jalazo declined to disclose the sale price, as well as the renovation cost.

The hotel space will take up floors 7-20, and will consist of two Marriott brands—AC Hotel and Element Hotel. The office space will occupy floors 3-6.

The rooftop bar will rest on top of the 13th floor of the shorter structure, which overlooks Commerce Street and Main Plaza. A restaurant, and potentially some retail space, will occupy the first floor as well as the two hotel lobbies. Renderings submitted to the HDRC showed the Subway being moved from its current position facing Soledad to another spot facing Commerce Street.

Current tenants, which includes some city departments, will be moved to their new areas of the building soon after the building is sold. Others will be phased out.

The city of San Antonio, for example, will eventually move its offices currently in Riverview Towers, which includes the human resources department, into the old Frost Tower.

This is Winston Hotels first project in Texas.

“We’ve loved the San Antonio market for a long time and we’ve been trying to find a project to do here,” Jalazo said. “We were lucky enough to find this building that worked very well for what we wanted to do. We think long-term San Antonio is a great outlook as a market. We’re long-term holders.”