The hotel rooms will be outfitted with 42" flat-panel HDTVs,Hyatt signature beds and oversized sofa-sleepers in each room. Thehotel itself will have 1,500 sf of meeting space, an outdoor pooland a fitness center. RYS Architects is the architect ofrecord.

ABA co-founder Jesse Allison tells GlobeSt.com that the impetusbehind the project is its location next to the Galleria and acrossfrom the Fountains lifestyle center, and the upcoming conventioncenter. Given the prime location, he hopes to achieve meet or beatthe results that other comparable hotels in the market areexperiencing, which is an average occupancy of 72% and an averagedaily room rate of $140. If that happens it will be a solidlyprofitable venture, he says.

The Hyatt Place, the company's first project, is one of threefor which the company expects to break ground this year. Thecompany also has plans for a 151 Hyatt Place in Vista, CA and a131-unit, Summerfield Suites by Hyatt in Tempe, AZ, next to thenewly constructed Warner Village retail center. Site work will getunderway in the next couple of months for the Tempe project, whichis slated for delivery in fall 2010. Work on the Vista, CA projectis tentatively slated to get underway by the end of the year and becomplete several months after the Tempe project.