Earlier this month, Houston First showed off renderings of the office building it’s planning to build for itself and 3 other Houston-boosting organizations (top), headlined by the Greater Houston Partnership, one block north of and linking to the George R. Brown Convention Center. (A massive attached 1,900-car parking garage would share the skybridge to the George R. Brown and fit between the building and the Hwy. 59 overpass.) Yesterday, the operator of the city’s performing arts and convention facilities pulled out an additional pic (above), highlighting another aspect of its plan, and showing how the same building would look with a 15-story add-on perched on top of it. The rendering of the tower portion by WHR Architects, the same firm that’s designing the office building and parking garage, is meant to be “conceptual”; Houston First announced it will begin taking proposals for the hotel from developers, who might choose a different design team.

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WHR’s design for the office building includes a combined covered dropoff along Avenida de las Americas that would serve both structures, the Chronicle‘s David Kaplan reports. A small lobby and an elevator bank for the hotel would also be on the ground floor. The parking garage is meant to serve visitors to the convention center as well as the 1,000-room Marriott Marquis that just began construction catty-corner to the property facing the northern edge of Discovery Green; Kaplan reports up to 200 spaces in the same garage would be reserved for guests of the unnamed Houston First hotel tower.

• Plan calls for hotel to perch atop new tower [Houston Chronicle]
• Previously on Swamplot: Houston’s Biggest Boosters Planning Their Own Downtown Perch, Offices, Track-Through Parking Garage, Future Hotel

Renderings: WHR Architects