Detroit plans a second hotel attached to Huntington Place, and a 16-story tower would come down for it

The Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority and developer Congress and Associates announced plans for a second hotel connected to Huntington Place, a roughly 600-room property that would rise just north of the convention center. The authority and the developer unveiled the project the morning of April 30.

Building it would mean clearing the block first. The site sits within Congress Street, Fort Street, Cass Avenue, and Washington Boulevard, and the plan calls for demolishing at least two existing structures. The largest is a 16-story office building, the Fort Washington Plaza at 333 W. Fort St., which opened in the early 1970s, along with the parking structure at 328 W. Congress St., according to reporting from The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press. A third building on Washington Boulevard could also come down, though the developers have indicated the hotel can proceed without it.

Congress and Associates is an affiliate of the Sterling Group, the same firm building the JW Marriott now under construction beside Huntington Place. Under the announced terms, the developers and a future hotel brand would hold 51 percent of the project and the convention authority would hold 49 percent, a structure that mirrors the public-private split behind the JW Marriott. No brand has been selected yet, and the authority says those conversations are ongoing.

The numbers attached to the announcement are large. The authority and developer put the capital investment at up to $450 million and project about 1,000 permanent hospitality jobs once the hotel opens, several hundred construction jobs while it is built, and roughly $100 million in new annual spending. Construction is slated to begin in early 2027.

The case the authority is making is about connection. A hotel attached directly to the convention floor lets Detroit pitch event organizers on rooms steps from the exhibit halls, the kind of integrated package that competing convention cities already offer. "This is another milestone moment for hotel development in Detroit," Claude Molinari, the authority's board chairman and president of Visit Detroit, said in the announcement. Bryan Crowe, the authority's chief executive, framed it as part of a longer arc, saying Huntington Place "continues to evolve and transform its footprint, the surrounding area, and the entire region."

What the announcement did not detail is the part that tends to draw the most scrutiny: the financing structure and any public incentives behind a $450 million project, and the specifics of clearing an occupied 16-story building. Those questions usually surface through the approval and permitting process, and they will shape the public conversation as the project moves from announcement to groundbreaking.