A long-awaited boutique hotel on the River Walk is set to open in 2023, next door to a 10-story office building being converted into luxury apartments.

Harris Bay is planning to break ground in the first quarter on Artista San Antonio, a 112-room hotel at 151 E. Travis St., said managing partner Jake Harris.

The real estate investment company formed an opportunity zone fund to buy the 0.2-acre site in 2019 from Seaside Hospitality Corp., which nixed its plans in 2018 to build a 100-room boutique hotel on the property.

French hospitality group Accor will manage the hotel, which will operate under its Morgans Originals brand.

Rooms will have an “art-centric modern design with a nod to the Spanish colonial roots of San Antonio” and the hotel will reflect “a strong South and Central American flavor with work by artists whose pieces will be featured throughout the property,” the company said in a statement.

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The project will include retail, a restaurant and coffee and bar components, Harris said, along with more than 2,500 square feet of meeting and event space. The hotel is expected to open in July 2023.

Harris Bay, which has offices in San Antonio and California, is also renovating the Travis Building, which is next to the future hotel.

The company bought the building in 2020. Its redevelopment will include 63 luxury apartment units along with amenities for residents and retail space, according to a September filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

Construction is underway and the apartments are expected to be finished in spring 2022, Harris said.

Both properties are within an opportunity zone that encompasses much of downtown. The program, established by former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul, is aimed at spurring investment in underserved areas.

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Investors who put their capital in long-term investments within the designated zones, which include 24 census tracts in San Antonio, receive tax breaks on capital gains. The program has been criticized in part because research has shown many of the zones were already seeing an abundance of investment before getting the designation, including downtown San Antonio.

Harris has said he plans to use the opportunity zone program for both projects.

“The adaptive reuse of historic buildings always is a challenge,” he said last fall, referring to the Travis Building.

The company also has several other local projects in the works. South of downtown, Harris Bay is turning warehouses on South Flores Street and near G.W. Brackenridge High School into apartments and retail space. On the East Side, Harris Bay plans to turn a former pallet manufacturing site at Essex and Cherry streets into a mixed-use development with housing, offices and retail dubbed Essex Modern City.

madison.iszler@express-news.net