A Los Angeles-based developer is giving new life to a shuttered Hilton Hotel in Houston. Bryan Kang’s Dos Lagos Asset filed documents detailing plans for adaptive reuse of the former 292-room Hilton Houston Galleria at 6780 Southwest Freeway. A multifamily complex is planned, but the number of units wasn’t included in the filing.

Conversion of the 200,000-square-foot, 13-story building has an estimated cost of $40 million. Dallas-based design firm Huitt Zollars is attached to the project. Construction is expected to start in April, with an estimated completion date in September 2025.

Originally constructed in 1978 and remodeled in 2016, the Hilton Houston Galleria has been vacant since its lender foreclosed on the property in 2022. The hotel had closed because of the pandemic. Its 2023 assessed value was $7.2 million.

Hotel-to-resi conversions are a burgeoning business in Houston’s commercial real estate scene. While office-to-resi conversions make the headlines, hotel-to-resi reuse developments comprise 58 percent of Houston’s conversion market, according to RentCafe.

The Houston Housing Authority, in collaboration with Columbia Residential, is converting a dilapidated Holiday Inn at 2100 Memorial Drive into an affordable 197-unit senior living complex.

Hotel-to-resi developer Shir Capital acquired the defunct Wyndham Hotel at 14703 Park Row in 2022. It is planning to open Teak Living, a rental community, by the end of this quarter.