A vacant 19-story office tower at 400 E. Van Buren St. in downtown Phoenix is headed for a dramatic second life as a 340-room JW Marriott hotel, part of a $200 million conversion planned by a Las Vegas development firm. The project would transform one of Arizona Center's largest office buildings into a luxury property featuring a club lounge on its upper floors, a resort-style pool, a ballroom, meeting spaces, a fitness center and new restaurants.
According to ABC15 Arizona, the developer behind the project is LaPour Partners, a Las Vegas-based firm that has already completed four hotel projects in the Phoenix area, including the AC Hotel Phoenix Downtown, which sits within the same Arizona Center complex. Interior demolition on the new project is scheduled to begin in early 2027, with main construction following later that year and an opening targeted for 2029, according to the Phoenix Business Journal.
Reimagining a 1989 Office Tower
The adaptive reuse plan calls for converting the 351,600-square-foot Class A office building into guest rooms averaging more than 500 square feet, with meeting space consolidated on the 18th and 19th floors and a ground-level pool overlooking a two-acre park, per In Business Magazine. Built in 1989, the tower's 12-foot-6-inch floor-to-floor ceiling heights and expansive glass windows are seen as unusually well-suited to conversion into hotel rooms and high-floor event space, the outlet's report notes.
LaPour Partners has tapped design firm LJC as architect and Looney & Associates as interior designer for the conversion, the Phoenix Business Journal reports. LaPour previously completed the AC Hotel Biltmore in 2018 and the AC Hotel Phoenix Downtown in 2019, and broke ground in 2025 on a dual-branded AC Hotel and Element by Westin project in North Phoenix slated to open in 2027, according to a release carried by PR Newswire. The firm received Marriott's Hotel of the Year award in 2022 for the AC Hotel Biltmore, per the same release.
Why a Downtown Office Tower Is Becoming a Hotel
The conversion reflects a broader shift playing out across Phoenix's urban core, where office towers have struggled far more than their suburban counterparts. Urban core office submarkets recorded a 27.3% vacancy rate in the second quarter of 2026, compared with 17.6% across suburban submarkets, according to CBRE. That gap helps explain why converting a downtown tower into hospitality space has become financially attractive even as suburban markets like Scottsdale and North Phoenix continue to lead regional office absorption.
Roughly 3.3 million square feet of office space has been pulled from Phoenix metro inventory through conversion or demolition since 2024, helping push market-wide office vacancy down to 19.1% in the second quarter of 2026, per Bisnow. At the same time, zero speculative office buildings broke ground anywhere in Greater Phoenix during that quarter, leaving total active office construction at just 450,000 square feet, concentrated mostly in corporate build-to-suit headquarters, according to Transwestern data cited by AZ Big Media.
A Third JW Marriott for the Valley
The downtown property would become the third JW Marriott in the Phoenix metropolitan area, joining the 950-room JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa and the JW Marriott Scottsdale Camelback Inn Resort & Spa, according to the Forbes Travel Guide. Ryman Hospitality Properties acquired the Desert Ridge resort in May 2025 for $865 million, underscoring the brand's deep investment in the Valley's suburban resort corridors even as it now moves into the urban core.
The office tower itself has a long real estate history. It was acquired in December 2015 by Parallel Capital Partners and Angelo Gordon & Co. as part of a $126 million purchase of the 16-acre Arizona Center complex, according to Commercial Cafe. That complex later underwent a $25 million multi-phase renovation between 2017 and 2019 aimed at revitalizing its retail, dining and open space.
A Complex Already in Transition
The hotel conversion arrives as Arizona Center has been steadily rebuilding its commercial footprint. Local dining group signs Arizona Center lease in 2024, when Pretty Decent Concepts leased nearly 10,000 square feet at the complex to open three new dining venues, part of a broader push by local operators to revive commercial spaces there. That earlier reinvestment now sits alongside a much larger bet on downtown Phoenix hospitality.
Several questions remain unresolved as the project moves through pre-development. It is not yet clear how LaPour Partners will finance the full $200 million price tag amid elevated interest rates, how construction crews will manage logistics around Arizona Center's active retail tenants, or whether downtown Phoenix's convention and tourism demand will grow enough by 2029 to absorb 340 new luxury rooms.
