Trendy new hotel is first to open in Dallas Design District

DALLAS - The new Virgin Hotels Dallas will be the first to open in the booming Dallas Design District.

The 268-room hotel is set to open Sunday in the middle of all the art galleries, museums, restaurants, furniture shops and new apartments that have popped up in the area.

"From this hotel, you can walk to the American Airlines Arena and go to a Mavs game or a Stars game. You can walk to 20 restaurants within three blocks from here. There's so much to do here and it's all within walking,” said Bill Hutchinson, the owner of Virgin Hotels.

The hotel also features two penthouse suites, multiple restaurants and bars and a rooftop pool. It’s full of unique artwork including a pair of hands solving a Rubix Cube that is modeled after Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson.

“This hotel is not just to come spend the night this hotel will activate the whole area, people will come here to cluster, eat, be entertained have a good time, this will be the center of not only the design district but I predict it will be the center of Dallas,” Hutchinson said.

The property was originally in a flood plain. Now it is a thriving part of the urban core of Dallas.

"Because it's so well situated across the freeway from Downtown and Uptown and Victory, developers have been eyeing it for years. My goal was to keep the showrooms, the designers in the Design District. I've always said they are the heart and the soul of the Design District. But now I want all of Dallas to come here to be entertained,” Hutchinson said.

Virgin has two other hotels in San Francisco and Chicago.