Owners of San Antonio's vacant El Tropicano Hotel to spend $46 million on upgrades

One of the oldest hotels on the San Antonio River Walk is about to get a facelift. Downtown's El Tropicano Hotel will undergo a $46 million update at the hands of Trestle Studio, a real estate developer known for swanky boutique hotels in London, New York and other hotspots, according to a recent Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) filing. El Tropicano has been vacant since 2020, when the pandemic shut down earlier plans to reimagine the hotel's interior, the San Antonio Report wrote in December.