New Luxury Fitness Hotel Shakes Up the River Oaks Shopping Scene

While Houston is still awaiting appearances from hospitality juggernauts such as W Hotels and Bunkhouse Group, another groundbreaking hotel chain is creeping onto the city’s hospitality scene… and it’s a rather unexpected arrival.

Equinox, the luxury fitness club that infiltrated Houston’s outdoor shopping center River Oaks District nearly two years ago, is expanding its Bayou City footprint with plans to erect a high-rise, mixed-use hotel just steps away from its posh River Oaks gym.

EQX River Oaks LLC has filed an application with the city planning and development commission to develop a hotel/high-rise housing 214 rooms and about 70 apartments. On its application, it notes, “In recent years, this area has been evolving into an area for high-density mixed-use development. The area character has transitioned.”

The future hotel will serve as part of Phase II of River Oaks District, which is described on developer OliverMcMillan’s website as a “455,000 square-foot expansion [that] will complement the existing site and the greater Houston-area with 190,000 square feet of state-of the-art office space; 150,000 square feet devoted to a luxury hotel; 90,000 square feet of contemporary residential space; and 25,000 square feet of best-in-class and bespoke retail.”

Houston will be one of the first cities to get an Equinox Hotel, which touts the mantra “where the science of fitness meets the art of travel.”

The brand revealed plans for its hotel launch last year, with the first two installments in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards district and Los Angeles slated to debut in 2019.

If Equinox’s luxury gym amenities — you’ll find everything from a hotel-caliber locker room fully stocked with Kiehl’s products and a steam room to a full-service spa and on-site juice bar — are any indication of what’s to come from the fitness gurus’ hotels, we’ll definitely be snagging a reservation.