Texas-shaped lazy river is almost complete in Houston

“You’re not going to see a Florida-shaped pool in the state of Florida, because they don’t care as much as Texas cares about their state,” said Jay Marsella, director of marketing for Marriott Marquis.

On Tuesday, crews worked feverishly on the 6th floor of the yet unopened hotel. They sweated in the October sun to put final touches on this pool that is one of its kind–for the one of a kind event.

The Marquis is Super Bowl headquarters for the NFL, and all the media coming to town in February.

The pool itself allows you to float from the edge, which is El Paso, and head over to Galveston in a matter of seconds and come back around.

This is the seventh Marriott Marquis in the world.

The entire terrace level is 60,000 square feet, and it all comes at a cost of $12 million.

“The owners wanted something different,” Marsella said. “They wanted something that made a difference in a big city — something that no one else had.”

Marsella also took our cameras on a tour of the entire hotel, which will have six different bar and restaurants in it as well as 1,000 guest rooms and the largest ballroom in the city.

He said the hotel, which broke ground in 2014, is being built primarily to bring additional business to the city, and that business is in the form of conventions.

“The Super Bowl is one weekend, and to be honest, there’s a lot more revenue we have to make that’s not just the Super Bowl,” Marsella said. “The Super Bowl is great to be able to expose ourselves.”

But it’s likely that exposure will come from the iconic swimming pool, which will light up the downtown skyline.

The hotel will be open right after Christmas, but the Marriott said they likely won’t be open until the general public until April, because they have to train their staff and manage the other conventions they have coming in.

Source: http://www.wfaa.com/features/texas-shaped-lazy-river-pool-near-completion/342099095