There’s a new hotel in downtown Columbus.
The Hotel Indigo has opened along the Chattahoochee River at Front Avenue and 14th Street on Monday morning.
The Hotel Indigo went up in record time.
It took 13 months for the $30 million riverfront hotel to be constructed.
“This was record speed building a new Hotel Indigo,” said Carol Hoeller, Global head of Hotel Indigo. “And it was done during a pandemic without missing any beautiful details.”
Hotel Indigo is on prime real estate along the Chattahoochee River.
But once you get inside, you realize the attention to detail that was paid on this $30 million W.C. Bradley Company project. It is part of the River Place development that includes The Rapids, a 226-unit apartment complex next door. The first two phases of the four-phase project on nearly 8 acres has already resulted in more than $80 million in private investment.
Throughout the seven-story hotel, the décor says Columbus. And it says it in strong and narrative way.
And the showstopper is a rooftop restaurant and bar that offers spectacular views up and down the river.
“This hotel is in the perfect location within Columbus right along the river,” Hoeller said. “And I think it brings together such a beautiful story intersecting the past but also the present and the future.”
It has been nearly four decades since a new downtown Columbus hotel opened. The Marriott, which opened as a Hilton in the early 1980s, was the last new downtown hotel. And the W.C. Bradley Co. was a partner in that venture.
It won’t take four decades for the next new downtown hotel.
Three more downtown hotels are in various stages of construction. The AC Hotel on Broadway will likely open within 60 days, developer and owner Rinkesh Patel, president of Columbus-based RAM Hotels tells News 3.
A boutique hotel being developed by the Columbus-based Pezold companies in City Mills north of the TSYS campus could open 30 rooms in a couple of months.
Construction has slowed on the Hampton Inn at Broadway and 12th. But that Pezold property could be done before the end of year, Pezold Chief Operating Officer Tracy Sayers tells News 3.
W.C. Bradley worked to open its doors before the others.
“It’s important to be first in the market and like I said we pushed this building forward in just over 13 months umm to get from start to opening here today,” said Pace Halter, president, W.C. Bradley Co. Real Estate Division.
Columbus Mayor Skip Henderson said the city will benefit with tax revenue and additional convention revenue as the new hotels come on line this year.
“ I see opportunity and I see validation and I see I see revenue,” Henderson said. “And I also see something that not only is going to solve some of the issues we’ve got with available rooms, but it’s going to be iconic.”
W.C. Bradley Co. Chairman John Turner said this type of development was the vision of his father, Bill Turner, a philanthropist and businessman who planted the seeds for downtown development. Bill Turner died in August 2017 at 94.
“He would be very happy,” John Turner said. “He worked to make uptown a better place for decades and he was just about to see kind off the fruits of his labor pay off. Now, we are seeing that.”