Graduate Austin

Graduate Hotels' usual trick is buying an old building near a university and reworking it; in Austin it's building new instead: a mixed-use tower blocks from UT's West Campus combining 194 rooms with nearly 230 apartments. The project has already slipped from an original 2025 target to 2028, worth tracking rather than banking on until ground actually breaks.

The place

At the corner of 18th Street and Guadalupe Street (also referenced as 1800 Guadalupe St and 408 W 18th Street in different city filings), on the southwest edge of the University of Texas campus: the West Campus corridor that anchors Graduate's college-town positioning nationwide.

The concept

Graduate Hotels built its reputation on adaptive reuse, converting existing buildings near university campuses, but this Austin property is one of the brand's rare ground-up builds: a mixed-use tower, reported as 18, 19 or 14 storeys depending on the source, combining 194 hotel keys with 228 apartments under AJ Capital's Memoir Residential platform and more than 8,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. First announced in 2023 with an initial 2025 target, the timeline has since slipped to 2028, and construction had not visibly started as of mid-2026. The interior program draws on Austin's music and university culture through glazed terracotta, checkerboard cement tile and a desert-inflected palette, developed in-house by AJ Capital's design team.

Dining & wellness

Plans describe a ground-floor café, lobby bar, rooftop restaurant and bar, and a separate rooftop pool for hotel guests (residents get their own). No restaurant name or operator has been announced.