Where Are The Rapture People?
The mystery behind Austin's falling hotel: As glass tumbles from new W & forcesevacuation, theories abound
Austin's new W Hotel was evacuated after three incidents in which panels ofglass fell from the hotel.Photo by ATMTX Photography/Flickr
The W Hotel is the hip brand of Starwood Hotels.
They don't make luxury hotels like they used to.
At least, not if the mysterious fate of the plush, new W Hotel in Austin is any indication. Glass window panels fell from the upper stories of the hotel onto the street for the second straight day Tuesday — and the third time in less than a month. The falling glass prompted the evacuation of all the hotel's guests, street and sidewalk closures all around the hip beacon, and a hastily-called news conference at Austin's City Hall Tuesday night.
The W (which also has a residential component) will be closed to hotel guests until further notice, streets around the building will be shut down to traffic (including busy Third Street) and more than 1,000 glass panels will be replaced. All this, and no one's still quite sure why glass keeps falling from the sky.
Austin's W is only seven months old after all — one of the heavily-promoted, shining lights in Starwood Hotels and Resorts' W brand, an offshoot of hotels are supposed to be hipper and provide "rock-star comforts" in the W Austin's own promotional words.
This particular rock star has a problem with smashing things. Three glass panels fell from the hotel Tuesday after three glass panels fell from the hotel onto parked cars on Monday. This follows an incident on June 10 in which four glass panels fell from high on the 37-story hotel onto the hotel's pool area and injured four people. Two of those people, who were guests in the hotel, filed a lawsuit Tuesday.
Of course, it's just as hot in Houston and none of our buildings are shattering.
The suit alleges that the hotel had been warned about a problem before the first glass came falling down in what's described as hail-like shards a 1/2 inch to a foot long in the suit.
"The entire team here at the W couldn’t be more devastated that this has occurred," Beau Armstrong, the CEO of the $300-million hotel's developer Stratus Properties, said in a statement provided to CultureMap and other media outlets. "But unfortunately after consulting with numerous experts we still do not know why this has happened."
Have they contacted that rapture preacher?
Plenty of others are weighing in. It turns out that when a new $300-million hotel starts raining glass, everyone has a theory. Especially the glass people.
The USGlass News Network (no, it wasn't created on Tuesday) is all over the story. "It depends upon the thickness of glass, details of the glazing application, how it was held in place (two-sided or four-sided)," Greg Carney, president of C.G. Carney Associates Inc. tells USGNN. "Depending upon these issues there could be any number of questions, and potential causes."
In his statement, Armstrong says that the glass has come from the hotel's balcony panels breaking apart, cause unknown. Several media outlets in Austin have speculated that the oppressive heat could have contributed to the glass breaking.
Of course, it's just as hot in Houston and none of our buildings are shattering.
"When they said, 'Keep Austin Weird,' I didn't know it would be from buildings falling apart," Kathy O'Brien, who is in Austin for a conference, told KXAN, the NBC station in Austin.
CultureMap Austin editor-in-chief Kevin Benz points out that Austin City Limits' new Moody Theater venue is in the W Hotel building and that several events are scheduled there in the near future. This Wednesday night's "Wine Down Wednesday" in the space has already been canceled.
It's hard to stay hip, when you're breaking apart.
