Detroit’s post-pandemic hotel building boom not only isn’t over, it appears to be shifting into higher gear.
The Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau has long said that the greater downtown area is thousands of rooms short of what it needs to regularly attract and host big events, even with the recent wave of new boutique hotel openings, which included the AC Hotel in Midtown, the Cambria Hotel in downtown and the Godfrey Hotel in Corktown.
And hotel developers have continued to heed the call to build.
Three high-profile projects are on pace to open between the end of the year and next spring: a large JW Marriott hotel next to Huntington Place, an EDITION Hotel within the new Hudson’s Detroit skyscraper and a NoMad hotel in Ford’s newly rehabbed Michigan Central Station.
But these properties are only expected to partially meet the demand for more downtown rooms.
“We actually just lost a major event,” said Claude Molinari, president and CEO of the convention and visitors bureau, known as Visit Detroit, “and for the sole reason that we do not have enough hotel rooms to support it downtown.”
Those three hotels on the horizon would bring the total count to about 8,000 hotel rooms in greater downtown Detroit. However, some highly sought-after events and conventions typically want to see 10,000 hotel rooms before they will commit, Molinari said.
“So even though there’s 45,000 hotel rooms in southeast Michigan, there’s less than 10,000 in the city of Detroit,” he said.
Room count poised to actually drop
However, the hotel room count could actually drop in 2027. That is because the 1,328-room Marriott at the Renaissance Center is expected to permanently close sometime next year after Detroit hosts the 2027 Final Four in early April.
So Detroit will soon need even more new hotels to open to simply tread water — and more could be coming.
There have also been a handful of hotel closures in recent years, including that of the 109-room Roberts Riverwalk Hotel, 1000 River Place Drive, on the east riverfront, which shut its doors in 2022. The property was subsequently purchased by Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock firm, which has yet to announce any new plan for the shuttered building.
And the former Sonder apartment-rental hotel at 305 Michigan in downtown abruptly closed last November when the Sonder chain filed for bankruptcy. However, the property appears to have since reopened with the new name The Hotel Houze Detroit.
Below are details on four new hotel developments that are under construction as well as nine developments that have been announced but have yet to get underway.
The hotel occupancy rate in greater downtown Detroit, which includes New Center, was 51% through the first 18 weeks of 2026, according to Visit Detroit.
Hotels coming soon
Announced projects
“So we’re addressing a need that we have a shortage of hotels, and we’re addressing a need that we have a lot of empty office space,” Molinari, the Visit Detroit chief executive, said of the project.
“There’s obviously a need for hospitality to keep up with all the demand,” Soave said. “There’s just not enough rooms to keep up with all these big events.”
Contact JC Reindl: 313-378-5460 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on X @jcreindl
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: What’s next in the downtown Detroit hotel boom
Reporting by JC Reindl, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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