The new hotel in downtown Indianapolis would change "our horizon" literally and figuratively

Hilton plans to build a "sophisticated and upscale" hotel with 38 floors and 800 rooms on the Pan Am Plaza in downtown Indianapolis, the hotel company said Friday.

Signia Hilton, a new brand created by Hilton, would stand out, said Visit Indy senior vice president Chris Gahl.

"It will change our horizon literally and figuratively," he said.

The hotel's construction would take about two years and is expected to open in 2023 on Illinois and Georgia Streets, Gahl said. It would be one of three that Hilton announced as part of its new Signia brand, designed for events and meetings. The other two are planned for Atlanta and Orlando.

"It is very valuable, from a convention and meeting point of view, to make sure that a brand like Hilton has confidence in a city like Indy to deploy a brand new hotel specifically designed for the planner of meetings, "said Gahl. "What we know from the research is that it will not only keep our current conventions, but also help us attract more and more other conventions that are not able to accommodate because of existing hotels and meeting rooms. "

It would beto be one of the tallest buildings in the city. The Salesforce Tower has 49 floors, the OneAmerica Tower has 38 and the Regions Tower 37 as a comparison.

The Signia Hilton Hotel in Indy is planned next to a $ 138 million renovation of the Indiana Convention Center, announced last fall, which would be funded with the help of a pending bill. adoption by the state legislature. A second 600-room Hilton would also be built on site, and both would connect via a 50,000-square-foot ballroom, Gahl said.

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A walkway would allow guests to travel from the hotel to the convention center.

Indianapolis has had to send more than 200 events over the past decade, Gahl said. This extra space would allow the city to bid for some of the events and conventions it had missed before.

"This new Signia brand is positioned as very sophisticated and upscale, so it's attractive when you market a city," he said.

The hotel is expected to have 80,000 square feet of meeting space, a rooftop terrace, a chef-led restaurant and state-of-the-art technology.

Call Amy Bartner, journalist at IndyStar, at 317-444-6752. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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