MCLEAN, Va.—Hilton Worldwide announced plans to operate a 600-650 room convention center headquarters hotel in downtown Cleveland. Cuyahoga County has awarded Hilton Worldwide the rights to manage this Hilton Hotels & Resorts property adjoining the new Cleveland Convention Center in the heart of the city’s downtown. Cuyahoga County is the owner of the hotel and financing the project with a combination of tax-exempt bonds and other tax-revenue sources.
“We are thrilled to be operating a new hotel in the city’s dynamic downtown section, which will be connected to the recently opened Cleveland Convention Center and situated in close proximity to the Global Center for Health Innovation featuring world-class tenants such as GE Healthcare, Siemens and Cisco,” remarked Ted Ratcliff, senior vice president, operations, Eastern North America, Hilton Worldwide. “The hotel will play an integral role in the consolidation of this complex that is designed to enhance the waterfront as the urban core center of convention and entertainment activity.”
The project represents an attractive opportunity to expand Hilton’s network of convention hotels and is the flagship brand’s first managed new-build project in the US, since the opening of the Hilton Columbus Downtown last fall, which is also a convention center-style property.
The hotel will also offer approximately 55,000 square feet of meeting space, a full-service restaurant, lobby bar, and recreation facilities that will include an indoor pool and fitness center. The new full-service convention center hotel is expected to begin construction by the end of this year and is scheduled to open by 2016. VOA Associates and Atlanta-based Cooper Carry are the joint architectural firms involved in the project and New York City-based Andersen-Miller is managing the interior design.
