Ophelia Hotel on pace for fall 2026
An aerial-view rendering of The Ophelia Hotel and Conference Center shows how it will sit in relation to Lake Marble Falls and Lakeside Park (to the right). Phoenix Hospitality Group image
The Ophelia Hotel and Conference Center is on track for an October 2026 opening. The steel structure of the long-awaited project appeared on the Marble Falls horizon in August, and now the five-story hospitality hotspot is truly taking shape.
“It’s a project a decade in the making,” Christian Fletcher, executive director of the Marble Falls Economic Development Corp., told DailyTrib.com. “Everything is good. They’re on schedule and they’re on budget.”
The Ophelia, named after the first woman mayor of Marble Falls, Ophelia “Birdie” Harwood, will be a 127-room, 96,000-square-foot boutique hotel with an attached 9,000-square-foot conference center and a public bar and restaurant. The hotel is going up at the corner of Main and Yett streets near Lakeside Park and downtown Marble Falls.
The project is a collaboration between the city of Marble Falls, the Marble Falls EDC, and developer Phoenix Hospitality Group, the latter of which will mostly handle the project’s management, funding, and buildout. The EDC did contribute $7.6 million in total value, including the land on which the hotel is being built.
That contribution is seen as an investment in the city by local leaders as The Ophelia is expected to have a $200-million economic impact on Marble Falls in its first 10 years of operation. The EDC, founded in 1991, is a standalone governing body, funded by a half-cent sales tax. That money can only be used to retain, expand, and attract businesses and industry to Marble Falls and foster the retention, creation, and reinvestment of wealth in the community.
A BRIEF TIMELINE
While the October 2026 completion date seems to be holding, the project’s timeline hasn’t always been easy to pin down. As Fletcher said, the city had an inkling of an idea to bring a nice hotel to Marble Falls over 10 years ago, but solid plans didn’t materialize until 2019.
The project faced delays due to the COVID slowdown in 2020 and a series of changes in business partners. After the end of the pandemic shutdown, leaders thought the project could be done by early 2024. But this was not to be, and ground wasn’t broken until August 2024.
A spring 2026 finish date was announced at the groundbreaking, but construction was delayed again. Ultimately, work got underway in early 2025, and an October 2026 full buildout prediction was given.