Whitestone Hospitality Plans AC Hotel by Marriott in Irving

The Toyota Music Factory is getting a new neighbor.

The AC Hotel by Marriott will be located at 335 John W. Carpenter Freeway, mere steps from the 8,000-capacity concert venue. The hotel is expected to open in July 2025, according to a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. It is expected to cost $18 million.

The number of rooms wasn’t included in the filing, but it was previously reported as 147 keys. If so, then the cost would be about $122,000 per key.

The 90,000-square-foot hotel building will have six stories as well as a restaurant, rooftop bar and over 3,000 square feet of meeting space, the Dallas Morning News reported.

The hotel will be located near a Holiday Inn, the Westin Irving Convention Center Hotel, the Omni Las Colinas Hotel and the Marriott Dallas Las Colinas.

The development also counts among its neighbors the forthcoming Wells Fargo campus, which will also open next year. That 850,000-square-foot regional campus will include two office highrises and a parking garage.

Irving-based Whitestone Hospitality is behind the AC Hotel. Whitestone was founded by Suresh Patel and has more than 20 other hotels and motels in Dallas-Fort Worth. Its portfolio includes properties in the Best Western, Motel 6, Choice Hotels, IHG, Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt chains.

AC Hotel by Marriott also has locations in downtown Fort Worth, downtown Dallas, north Dallas and Frisco.

Las Colinas’ AC Hotel is just one of the region’s forthcoming hotel developments. Loews Hotels is in talks with Arlington City Council to develop a 500-room hotel. And a $750 million Four Seasons Hotel is coming to Dallas’ Turtle Creek neighborhood.

Dallas-Fort Worth leads the nation in hotel construction, according to Lodging Econometrics. At the end of 2023, the Metroplex had 193 projects and more than 22,000 hotel rooms in the pipeline. In the fourth quarter alone, 14 hotel projects were added to the DFW pipeline.

The Metroplex’s pipeline indicates “robust growth and confidence in the hospitality sector,” the Lodging Econometrics analysts wrote.

DFW also ranks first in projects scheduled to start in the next 12 months and early planning stages of hotel construction. DFW also contributes significantly to the hospitality renovation and conversion trend.