From hotel suites to sub-surface transit: Gordon Hartman details future of Morgan’s expansion

Construction crews have completed framing and started putting up sheetrock on Morgan’s Hotel, an overnight lodging development designed to meet the needs of people with disabilities and their caregivers.

Under construction since 2024, the hotel is expected to open on the 170-acre campus in October or November.

It’s a project the creator describes as “way outside the box,” even for the man who founded the first ultra-accessible theme park, Morgan’s Wonderland.

“There’s not another Morgan Wonderland, there’s not another Morgan’s Inspiration Island [water park]. The Wonder Care that you see here is the largest in the state of Texas … ,” said Morgan’s founder Gordon Hartman. “We just do things outside the box, and that’s really what we’re doing here [with the hotel].”

That means every inch and service of the hotel is being designed to accommodate people with special needs, he said, from hallways and doorways wide enough for wheelchairs and walkers to extra-spacious adjoining rooms with mini-kitchens and accessible showers and smart toilets.

The hotel will have five elevators and added safety features in case of a fire. A restaurant on the third floor features a full bar at reduced counter height and floor-to-ceiling windows.

In the coming weeks, two guest rooms will be fully furnished and equipped as test cases before the $25 million hotel is even ready for actual guests.

“This a 93-room hotel. Every decision is 93 times,” he said. “I don’t want to go build 93 of them and go, ‘we just made 93 mistakes.’”

The hotel is not unlike other elements of Morgan’s, including the theme park which opened 16 years ago as the first inclusive, accessible theme park.

The former homebuilder has had no model to follow when it comes to designing the hotel and the only real experts, he said, are the people for whom he’s building it.

“We are defining ultra-accomodating,” he said.

Hartman knew for certain there was demand for such a hotel after a conversation with a tournament planner. He said she explained to him they had to use 20 different hotels across the city to house all the athletes who were competing because most hotels have a limited number of accessible rooms.

Morgan’s Hotel will be managed by the family-owned firm American Liberty Hospitality of Houston but it won’t be operated under a brand name or flag hotel chain.

“There is an assumption that every hotel has a flag and actually I’m going to say that’s not how you become successful,” Hartman said. “How you become successful is offering what the person wants. They will find you and you will find them.”

Surveying the work on a hill overlooking Wurzbach Highway on a recent day, Hartman said he is anticipating the opening while simultaneously developing what he calls more “resort-type” opportunities that will round out Morgan’s.

An inclusive fitness center is already under construction next door to the theme park and is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Water slides for people who use wheelchairs are being added to the water park.

The only one of the three future projects he is ready to reveal is a planned tunnel that will ferry passengers underground throughout the Morgan’s complex.

In March, the Boring Company announced Morgan’s as a winner in its Tunnel Vision Challenge, a contest to pick the next cities Elon Musk’s tunnel construction firm would enter.

The Bastrop-based Boring claims to have Challenge projects now underway in New Orleans, Baltimore and Dallas, but the company’s post on X also stated the Morgan’s project was “so compelling,” that it would continue to try and “get it built.”

Morgan’s was selected from almost 500 submissions, Hartman said.

“We’re working with them right now quite aggressively, so it would connect a hotel with this side of the campus,” he said.

In 2021, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, an agency tasked with improving transportation in Bexar County, selected the Boring Company’s proposal for a system using Tesla’s electric-powered cars in a tunnel 30 feet below ground that would ferry passengers between the San Antonio International Airport and downtown.

Boring and three others had responded to an invitation from the authority inviting revenue-generating transit proposals, but Boring said it would foot the entire $27-45-million bill for the first phase of the project.

By January 2025, however, Boring had “ghosted” the authority, according to a county staffer, never to be heard from again.

The company has built tunnels in Las Vegas, in California and at its Bastrop headquarters and the Tesla factory near Austin.

In 2025, Hartman added the Inclusion Institute to the Morgan’s portfolio and hired former CEO of the United Spinal Association, Vincenzo Piscopo, as president. The institute assists businesses, nonprofits and other entities seeking advice on how to integrate inclusion and accessibility into their work.

“So many people call us, asking how did y’all did this, how do we do that in our community?” Hartman said. The institute helps to guide them. “We’re into all sorts of things and we’re doing them different and people want to know why and how.”

by Shari Biediger