City officials, real estate developers and community figures gathered at the First Financial Center downtown Tuesday morning to break ground on the Cincinnati Marriott Downtown — the critical piece to the city’s $828 million plans for a revitalized Convention District.
“This is the first addition to our skyline in years,” Mayor Aftab Pureval said during the event. “It is the trademark headquarters hotel that will catalyze all the investments that we’re pouring into the convention district, to sell Cincinnati to companies, conferences, concerts and traveling families as the place to come visit.”
In June, national development group Portman Holdings announced it had secured $540 million in financing to develop the hotel.
The project’s financing is supported by approximately $248 million in public support, including a $50 million state capital grant, a $112 million public bond issuance relying primarily on tax increment financing, a $50 million loan from the city and $37 million in proceeds from a state tax credit award.
Construction on the hotel will be completed sometime in 2028, and is expected to be the crown jewel of the city’s current phase of downtown redevelopment. Tuesday’s groundbreaking was initially planned to be outdoors, but inclement weather moved the event inside the nearby convention center.
“When you’re pitching a convention … You’re competing. We’re competing against Louisville. We’re competing against Cleveland. We’re competing against Kansas City and so many others around us to tell people to bring the business to Cincinnati, Hamilton County,” Board of County Commissioners VP Alicia Reece said at the event. “They don’t want to go to 15 different hotels. They want to go to maybe one or two … So I’m glad we’re sending a resounding message that we’ve got all the tools to bring the conventions, to bring tourism, and to bring the money here to Hamilton County and the City of Cincinnati.”
Upon completion, the development will feature a full-service hotel with 700 guest rooms, 60,000 square feet of meeting space, a 17,000-square-foot events terrace and a range of upscale amenities designed to meet the needs of group, business and leisure travelers. The hotel will also be connected to the newly renovated First Financial Center via a skybridge and will include multiple ballrooms and ground-floor retail offerings.
“When we first got into office five years ago, it was the tail end of the pandemic, and urban cores across the country were being hollowed out, so we really got to work on two strategies urgently,” Pureval told CityBeat. “The first was live events and tourism to get people back to the urban core, and the second was converting office space into residential. And on both fronts, we’re really doing well.”
He cited recent city developments like the Foundry, the former Saks Building, the 8451 building, and the First Financial Center as notable recent successes for the city of Cincinnati.
“The sky is the limit for our tourism attractions. And then on the residential front, we’re second in the nation for converting underutilized office space and turning it into housing,” Pureval said. “So when other cities around the country are really struggling with their urban core, because of the work we’ve done over the last five years, we’re really seeing a lot of growth opportunities.”
In the future, he’s most looking forward to the hotel’s development, the completion of the New Brent Spence Companion Bridge, and the installation of caps on Fort Washington Way to create new green space to connect The Banks with the Central Business District.
“We’re continuing to think innovatively about how we can piece real estate together and actually revitalize it, breathe new life into it, so that it works for all of us as Cincinnatians,” Pureval said.
Portman Holdings, the City of Cincinnati, Hamilton County, the State of Ohio, Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. (3CDC), The Port of Greater Cincinnati, Visit Cincy, and several other project partners are contributing to the hotel’s development and construction. Skanska is currently leading the project.
