The Conrad Indianapolis is spending $25 million to remake nearly every corner of its 247-room downtown hotel, trading the traditional grandeur that has defined the property for two decades for a warmer, more restrained look the hotel is calling quiet luxury. The Hilton-owned hotel at 50 W. Washington St. announced the overhaul on September 1, and it will remain open to guests throughout construction.
According to IndyStar, the redesign will lean on a palette of camel, cream, espresso and charcoal tones, moving the property away from the look that has defined it since it opened in March 2006 as downtown's pioneering modern luxury hotel. Chicago-based interior architecture firm Anderson|Miller is leading the design under a concept it calls “The Crossroads of Quiet Luxury,” drawing on materials including walnut, saddle leather, travertine and veined stone, as reported by the Indianapolis Business Journal. The project marks the Conrad's first full interior redesign in a decade, following a previous renovation in 2016, and comes just months after the hotel marked 20 years in operation in March.
A New Look For an Old Landmark
Ryan Fitzgerald said the transformation will honor the hotel's legacy while introducing what he described as a fresh, contemporary design that elevates the guest journey, per IndyStar's report. The hotel also plans to unveil more dining developments in the coming months, with Kenneth Rivera set to overhaul the Conrad's banquet and wedding dining experience, the outlet notes.
The renovation lands amid a wave of new competition crowding into downtown Indianapolis's luxury hotel market. The InterContinental Indianapolis opened in February 2025 inside the century-old Illinois Building following a $120 million restoration by Keystone Group, introducing 170 rooms and what IHG describes as the city's first rooftop bar of its kind. IndyStar notes the InterContinental was the first new luxury hotel downtown in nearly two decades after the Conrad's 2006 debut. Hoodline previously reported on Keystone's hotel deals around that same conversion.
Bigger Rivals on the Horizon
Still more competition is on the way. The Signia by Hilton Indianapolis, an 800-room, 38-story tower that topped out in October 2025 at a cost of $510 million, is expected to open this fall directly across from the Indiana Convention Center, according to IndyStar. Once complete, the Signia will help give downtown Indianapolis 12 skywalk-connected hotels and more than 5,200 connected rooms, per Visit Indy, which calls it the largest skywalk-connected convention campus network in the country.
Further down Pennsylvania Street, an 18-story Kimpton hotel is wrapping up construction this year, converting the 117-year-old Odd Fellows Building into a 167-room boutique property. Its development cost nearly doubled to $110 million, a jump the Business Journal's earlier reporting attributed to rising material and labor expenses. Meanwhile, a Simon-backed venture broke ground in January 2026 on a $400 million mixed-use project across from Gainbridge Fieldhouse that will bring the city's first Ritz-Carlton hotel, a 15-story, 176-room property slated to open in early 2028.
Legacy Hotels Feel the Squeeze
The Conrad isn't the only established property refreshing its look to compete. Omni Severin, also considered a luxury brand downtown, unveiled its own $24 million renovation in fall 2024. IndyStar frames the Conrad's spending as a response to increased competition in the downtown luxury hotel market, as more rivals — from the Kimpton to the future Ritz-Carlton — vie for the same high-end travelers.
The building boom is backed by strong numbers. Indianapolis generated 8.1 million hotel room nights of demand in the 12 months ending mid-2025, exceeding its pre-pandemic peak by more than 580,000 room nights, while hosting a record 30.5 million visitors in 2025, according to a Bradford Allen report citing CoStar and Visit Indy data. Downtown hotels recorded an average daily room rate of $209.11 and a Revenue Per Available Room figure of $135.20 in 2025, outperforming national averages by roughly 30% and 35%, respectively, the same report found.
Those figures help explain why developers keep pouring money into the market even as thousands of new rooms prepare to open in the coming years. Visit Indy has reported that downtown's $710 million convention center expansion and the broader hotel pipeline have already locked in $1.3 billion in retained convention business, with interest in another $1 billion in prospective bookings through 2036. For the Conrad, now two decades into its run at 50 W. Washington St., the wager is that a warmer, quieter aesthetic can hold its place at the top of a downtown lodging scene that looks nothing like it did when the hotel first opened.
