Late January saw the opening of the Westin Houston Medical Center, an 18-story, 273-room property designed to cater not only to families of patients receiving treatment at the Texas Medical Center but also physician and researcher meeting groups. The big draw for such groups: Access to the physical and intellectual assets found among the eight different academic and research institutions and 21 different hospitals on campus.
TMC is home to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, rated the best cancer hospital in the world. Other top-tier institutions include Texas Children's Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston Methodist Hospital, St. Luke’s Health, Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, the University of Texas Health Sciences Center, and The Texas Heart Institute. More heart surgeries are performed at Texas Medical Center than anywhere else in the world.
The Westin Houston Medical Center offers more than 17,000 square feet of meeting space, including an 8,000-square-foot pillarless ballroom (photo above) that can accommodate more than 700 people and is divisible into six spaces. There’s also prefunction space connected to outdoor terraces (photo here and below).
“The Texas Medical Center does a great job providing world-class medical care to patients. What they didn’t do was worry so much about the amenities available to the people visiting the area, for whatever reason,” said Archit Sanghvi, vice president of operations at Pearl Hospitality, which redeveloped a historic mid-century building—the former Texas Medical Towers, one of the first glass-and-steel buildings in Houston—to become the Westin. “Our vision is to focus on the overall wellness of every guest who walks through our doors, helping them achieve balance of the mind, body, and spirit.”
The fifth floor of the hotel houses not just the meeting venues but also amenities related to that goal of personal wellness and balance. It features an outdoor pool plus two patios offering 18,000 square feet of space with views of the downtown skyline and the Medical Center campus. Elsewhere, there’s Terrace 54 Bar + Table restaurant (photo at bottom); a coffee shop; a 3,200-square-foot fitness center; and a public lounge area. 
The Westin is one block from the Intercontinental Hotel - Houston Medical Center, less than a mile to the Houston Zoo, and 23 miles to George Bush Intercontinental Airport, a 40-minute drive.
