Austin's skyline just got a new headliner, and the most talked-about hotel arrival in years is coming with it. 1 Hotel Austin opens in August 2026 inside the Waterline, the brand-new 74-story tower at the foot of Lady Bird Lake where Waller Creek meets the water. Reservations opened April 29, 2026, and the property is already drawing serious attention from travelers, locals, and the design world.

Here's what to know.

1 Hotel Austin occupies the ground level of the Waterline, the mixed-use supertower developed by Lincoln Property Company and Kairoi Residential. According to Lincoln, the building rises 1,022 feet across 74 stories, edging out Houston's JPMorgan Chase Tower (which held the title since 1981) by 23 feet to become the tallest building in Texas and the entire Southern U.S. Construction wrapped its topping-out ceremony in August 2025.

The hotel is one piece of a 1.5 million-square-foot campus that also holds 352 luxury apartments, more than 700,000 square feet of Class-AA office space, and 24,000 square feet of ground-floor dining and retail. Kohn Pedersen Fox designed the building. HKS Architects served as architect of record. Interiors come from Studio MAI in collaboration with the Starwood Hotels design team.

The hotel offers 252 guest rooms, including 60 suites. Studio MAI took its cues from modern Hill Country ranches and traditional Texas river houses, then layered in the biophilic design language that defines 1 Hotels properties from Brooklyn to Mayfair. Expect natural materials, tactile finishes, planted balconies, and floor-to-ceiling glass framing views of the Austin skyline, Lady Bird Lake, and Waller Creek directly below. The tower itself follows the curve of the creek, which is why the floor plates twist gently as they rise.

Food and drink are doing real work here, and the headliner is Alteño Austin. Chef Johnny Curiel runs the kitchen, the same James Beard Award nominee whose Denver restaurant Alma Fonda Fina earned a Michelin star and international acclaim. Curiel's cooking draws from the bold, fire-kissed traditions of Jalisco's Highlands, named for his father, the original alteño, or "highlander." The space centers on an open kitchen so the craft is part of the show.

Sixteen floors up, Watr is the rooftop play. The open-air lounge serves a Japanese-leaning menu with sweeping views of Lady Bird Lake, sunlit brunches in the morning, and a DJ-fueled scene by night.

Down in the lobby, Neighbors plays it more casual. The café and wine bar runs from morning coffee and fresh juices into a low-key evening spot with small plates and draft cocktails. Two entrances, one from the lobby and one from the street, mean it's built to function as a true neighborhood hangout, not just a hotel amenity.

A dedicated wellness floor houses an outpost of Bamford Wellness Spa, the organic-led concept developed by Carole Bamford in the English countryside. Treatment rooms, including one designed for couples, take design cues from Hill Country bathhouses. The 2,000-square-foot fitness center opens directly onto an outdoor terrace, and there's a separate yoga studio for classes and private sessions.

For corporate travelers and event planners, 1 Hotel Austin offers more than 10,000 square feet of flexible indoor and outdoor meetings space, with light-filled venues overlooking the city and the Waterloo Greenway. Events booked through the brand's Certified Sustainable Gatherings program commit to reduced waste and considered sourcing. The property is pursuing LEED Gold certification, and the brand's signature 1 Less Thing initiative invites guests to donate gently used clothing to local charities at check-out.

The Waterline sits on a 3.3-acre campus bordered by the Rainey Street Historic District to the east, Waller Creek to the west, and Cesar Chavez Street to the north. For decades, this stretch of Waller Creek was a flood-prone, neglected pocket of downtown. That story has changed dramatically.

The Waterloo Greenway Conservancy, founded in 2010, has been working with the City of Austin on a 1.5-mile chain of parks running from Waterloo Park down to Lady Bird Lake. Phase II, The Confluence, is a $91.5 million transformation of the 13 acres between 4th Street and the lake, and it opens to the public on June 6, 2026, two months before 1 Hotel Austin welcomes its first guests. New lattice pedestrian bridges, an 800-foot boardwalk, the Lagoon Overlook, and roughly 1,550 trees and 200,000 plants will tie the Rainey Street District directly into the lakefront trail system.

The hotel isn't just opening on a great corner. It's opening as the literal anchor of one of Austin's most ambitious public-space transformations in a generation.

A new luxury hotel in town isn't always news. This one is. The combination of a Michelin-pedigreed chef, a Bamford spa, the tallest building in the state, and a freshly restored greenway at the front door makes 1 Hotel Austin a real cultural arrival, not just a real-estate one. It also signals where downtown is heading: more nature, more density, more reasons to stay in town instead of fly out for the weekend.