Westin hotel’s valet use takes two lanes of Fifth
Hotel even has city permit to close off one of them permanently.
For $17,000 a year, maybe you too could have your own car lane for a half-block in downtown Austin.
Or you could temporarily grab part of another lane that’s otherwise closed for construction.
The Westin Austin Downtown hotel, which opened in mid-July, is doing both — with the city of Austin’s permission.
The hotel, fronting East Fifth Street just east of San Jacinto Boulevard, is using two lanes of East Fifth for its valet parking operation. One of the lanes, the one closest to the north curb, is devoted for a half-block to cars stopping at the Westin. Alongside it to the right, a second lane functions as a buffer, with white diagonal striping and plastic traffic cones placed every few feet in that area.
“Valet only,” the cones say, leaving the impression that a private business somehow commandeered two of the four lanes on a primary downtown thoroughfare. That is only half right, in the long run, city officials say.
The Westin has a permit to permanently close one lane of East Fifth, the one nearest its curb line, Transportation Department spokeswoman Sam Alexander said, and it is paying more than $17,000 a year for that privilege. The other lane to the right will return to public use next spring, after the end of an unrelated Austin Energy construction project that has temporarily closed the two northerly lanes of East Fifth for two blocks, from Brazos Street to
Trinity Street.
Kris Carlson, general manager of the Westin, said his hotel’s leasing of a lane isn’t out of the norm for downtown hotels, pointing to the Driskill Hotel on Brazos. That hotel has an extra parking spot in front of its entrance, separated from the curb by several feet. But Brazos, now a twolane street through downtown, retains both lanes in that block. And most other downtown hotels have off-street entrances and do not take lanes for valet operations.
Back over on East Fifth, Austin Energy closed two lanes in May 2014 when crews began to dig a vertical shaft near Trinity Street. Using that shaft, Austin Energy is spending about $4.3 million to drill a tunnel 40 feet underground to Red River Street. That tunnel will house a 30-inch pipe that will tie into the city’s chilled-water loop.
The city has two chilling stations where it makes ice overnight when electricity use is low, then uses that ice to chill water during the day. That water is then circulated through the loop and connected to more than 40 buildings downtown, whose owners pay the city to use that water in their air-conditioning systems.
The Trinity-to-Red River line is due to be done by March, said Susan Garnett, spokeswoman for the city’s Public Works Department, which is supervising the pipeline project for Austin Energy. The end of that project will bring the reopening of the lanes on East Fifth — except for the half-block stretch of the one lane that Westin will continue to use for its valet parking operation.
As for the Westin’s striping and appropriation of that second lane at present, Alexander said “they are taking advantage of a lane that is closed for construction” and would not be available for traffic even if the hotel were not using it. The Westin is not paying the city for that second lane, she said.
Once the construction of the new chilled-water line ends, she said, “there will be three lanes going through” between San Jacinto and Trinity, down from the long-term profile on most of East Fifth of four traffic lanes and two parallel parking lanes.
Beyond that, East Fifth almost certainly will be reduced permanently to three lanes (with parallel parking possible on at least one side) in the block just west of the Westin, between Brazos and San Jacinto. Alexander said another hotel will be built on what is now a parking lot on the street’s north side.
As is the case with the Westin, and with most development downtown in recent years, the city will require that the sidewalks be widened to about 18 feet for what the city calls its “great streets” profile. That would remove a traffic lane, although it is not clear when that hotel project will commence.
East Fifth is already three lanes between Congress Avenue and Brazos.