The Historic and Design Review Commission Wednesday gave its stamp of approval to The Arts Residences at the Thompson Hotel, a 20-level mixed use tower on the River Walk set to bring luxury accommodation to the area.

Promotional rendering of The Thompson Riverwalk Hotel and condo building. Credit: Courtesy / Powers Brown Architecture

The estimated $116 million condo-hotel project, developed by DC Partners and San Antonio-based Universal Service Group, will sit on what is now a .66-acre parking lot at the intersection of North St. Mary’s Street and Lexington Avenue, across the river from the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts and directly next to Hotel Indigo.

Along with the high-end, 167-room Thompson Hotel, the complex will include onsite parking, 24-hour security, commercial/restaurant space on the ground floor, a sky bar on the 20th floor, and 66 residential units at The Arts Residences.

Those for-sale units are being priced from the high $300,000 range to $5 million for penthouses, said DC Partners COO Acho Azuike.

Azuike said the team plans to break ground on the tower sometime this spring. The building is slated for completion in 2019.

“We’re excited about bringing a hotel and condos to the San Antonio market, [which] we truly believe in,” he said.

The Tobin Center, which opened in 2014, has livened up the northern part of downtown, which is largely comprised of parking lots. The new tower is expected to further activate the neighborhood, drawing visitors and residents visiting the Tobin and the adjacent San Antonio River.

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Houston-based firm Powers Brown Architecture is working with internationally renowned landscape architecture firm SWA on the design, which will feature seamless pedestrian connections with the surrounding neighborhood and the River Walk.

Thompson Hotels, an international chain, has 10 luxury hotels: three in New York, three in Mexico, and others in Chicago, Toronto, Nashville, and Seattle. Within the next few years, the company will add three new hotels in Texas, first in Dallas, then in San Antonio, and finally in Houston, Azuike said.

San Antonio’s robust tourism industry along the River Walk and its blossoming urban core, he added, make the city an ideal venue for Thompson Hotels to expand its hotel blueprint.