Edmond officials and project partners gathered Wednesday afternoon to break ground on a new Tru by Hilton hotel, marking the city's first new hotel development since the Hilton Garden Inn opened in 2018. The milestone caps years of planning for a site north of Covell on Progressive Drive, where the hotel brand has been working its way through city approvals since earlier this year.
The announcement came from the City of Edmond
, which said officials and project partners celebrated the groundbreaking this afternoon and called it the city's first new hotel project since the Hilton Garden Inn's 2018 debut. The city did not provide further details in its post about the project's room count, timeline or developer.
How the Project Moved Through City Hall
The groundwork for Wednesday's ceremony was laid months earlier. An Edmond City Council agenda from June 8 listed a public hearing and consideration of a site plan for a Tru by Hilton located north of Covell on Progressive Drive, filed under Case No. SP25-00024 and tied to Ward 2, according to the agenda and video posted by edmondok.new.swagit.com. The same agenda identified Blew Inc. in connection with the filing and included a request for a variance to the city's standard requirement of 150 feet of separation between two proposed driveways, per the council's own records.
A separate newsflash snippet from the City of Edmond described the project as a 10,000-square-foot hotel on Progressive Drive, north of I-35 and Covell, with a site plan and a variance for two full-access driveways on the street's west side reportedly approved by a 5-0 vote. That snippet was limited in detail, and the full newsflash text was not available, so additional specifics about the vote or the project beyond that description remain unconfirmed.
Edmond's Hotel Tax Just Went Up, Too
The groundbreaking lands at an interesting moment for Edmond's lodging industry. Voters in the city recently approved an increase to Edmond's lodging tax, raising it from 4% to 6% in what marked the first time the city has increased the tax in 30 years, according to koco.com. The tax applies not just to hotels but also to short-term home rentals like Airbnbs and bed and breakfasts, the station reported. City officials said the additional revenue generated would go toward Visit Edmond to help promote the city and attract future visitors.
A Brand With Deep Oklahoma City Roots
Tru by Hilton is no stranger to the Oklahoma City metro. The first Tru by Hilton in the state opened in 2017 as an 86-room property on South Meridian Avenue, according to journalrecord.com. At the time, Champion Hotels, the company behind that project, said it planned six more Tru properties across the metro — including one in Edmond, along with locations in Yukon, Norman, along the Northwest Expressway, downtown and in the Quail Springs Mall corridor — and said they would be built within two and a half years.
The brand has also expanded elsewhere in the state. In Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation officials and the local community joined Promise Hotels representatives on April 9 to celebrate the groundbreaking of a Tru by Hilton at Cherokee Springs Plaza, according to cherokeephoenix.org. That project was planned as a four-story, 90-room hotel and was expected to open in the spring of 2020.
Where Edmond's New Hotel Fits In
Edmond's existing hospitality anchor, the Hilton Garden Inn & Edmond Conference Center, opened in 2018 with 158 rooms and 20,000 square feet of event space, according to partnersinhospitality.net. The new Tru by Hilton would become the city's first addition to that lodging inventory in roughly eight years.
The timing also tracks with broader momentum in the regional hotel market. A state lodging forecast found that Oklahoma City has the strongest hotel development pipeline in the state, with more than 300 rooms expected to come online over the next two years, according to oklahomahotels.org. Edmond's new project, while still lacking a confirmed room count or opening date, adds another data point to that growth as the city's first fresh hotel entry since 2018.
