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The basics of Cincinnati’s Fidelity Hotel
What you need to know about the Fidelity Hotel: Seven years of restoration turned a Downtown landmark into luxe lodging
For years, downtown Cincinnati residents and workers watched crews move in and out of the iconic Gwynne Building at East Sixth and Main streets, wondering what exactly was happening behind its limestone walls.
Now, after a seven-year journey involving multiple hotel plans, hundreds of craftspeople and at least 500,000 labor hours, the building is finally reopening its doors as Cincinnati’s Fidelity Hotel.
The 165-room hotel was set to welcome its first guests on Tuesday, July 28, transforming one of downtown’s most prominent historic office buildings − and the former headquarters of Procter & Gamble from 1935 to 1956 − into a luxury boutique hotel. The hospitality hub includes 17 suites, two bunkrooms, a presidential suite, a 24-hour fitness center and 7,770 square feet of event space, along with a signature restaurant and coffee bar.
“It’s honestly been my favorite project I’ve ever worked on,” said Adam Behm of Looney & Associates, the interior design firm brought onto the project in 2023. “The building is so beautiful. We started with basically nothing on the inside apart from the historic corridor. It was a shell. Amazing windows, but a blank slate.”
The result is a space that celebrates Cincinnati’s architectural past while offering guests an elevated option among Downtown’s growing hospitality scene.
It’s also the larger, sister site to Cleveland’s Fidelity Hotel, which earned a One Michelin Key rating in 2025, marking it as one of the most recommended hotels in the world.
Bringing the brand to Cincinnati is the Fidelity’s attempt to reposition the Queen City in the luxury travel market, explained Jessi Tomain, director of sales and marketing.
“Our goal here from day one has been to create a high-quality hospitality experience that competes at a global scale,” she said. “It all started with this beautiful facade, the history of the space, and the mission of investing in an urban core.”
Architecture of the Fidelity Hotel: A French flair with plenty of pattern
The design of Cincinnati’s Fidelity Hotel was inspired by the 113-year-old Beaux Arts building it now occupies.
“We weren’t able to match the opulence of the exterior,” Looney & Associates’ Behm said, “but we wanted to create something that stands up to the grandeur while still feeling contemporary.”
To do that, the designers leaned heavily into rich colors, layered textures, patterns and collected furnishings − all nods to modern Parisian fashion. Rather than creating a pristine luxury environment, it’s outfitted to feel homey, lived in and full of character.
Behm pointed to the lobby living room as his favorite space. Furnished more like a sophisticated residence than a traditional hotel lobby, it sits adjacent to an enclosed check-in area intentionally designed to encourage one-on-one interaction.
“So many hotels today have a quick and impersonal check-in experience,” he said. “We wanted the check-in area to feel traditional, intimate and human.”
For the architects and contractors, creating the hotel’s layout was more complex than it looks.
“Most people driving by don’t realize it’s actually four different buildings tied together,” said Kevin Gilbert, senior project manager with HGC Construction. “Different floor elevations, different structural systems. That required a tremendous amount of coordination.”
The main tower was eventually joined by a four-story annex along Main Street, a two-story eastern addition and another one-story section near the parking area. Decades of renovations left behind a complicated puzzle.
“People will walk into this building and be like, ‘Well, they just gave it a fresh coat of paint,'” added Andreas Lange of PWWG Architects. “They might not even know that everything in here is brand new.”
Thousands of details, hidden in plain sight
Many of the hotel’s most impressive features are details guests may never consciously notice.
The vaulted plaster ceilings in the elevator lobby, for example, spent decades hidden above a suspended ceiling installed during a previous renovation.
Inside the Gwynne and Cora’s All Day Cafe − the hotel’s dining spaces, the mechanical systems are also concealed so carefully that visitors can admire restored historic plaster ceilings, the bold light fixtures and the artwork instead. (A lot of the art, sourced by Atlanta’s Soho Art Consulting, comes from local Ohio artists).
The Fidelity signage, branding and logo were intentionally derived from the facade’s historic elements, too.
Workers also restored the exterior’s decorative medallions and historic ornamentation that had deteriorated over time. New limestone was incorporated at the first and second floors, while green marble accents were recently installed to clean up the building at the street level.
The Gwynne’s windows presented another challenge. No two floors are exactly alike. Arched openings dominate portions of the structure, while window sizes vary significantly throughout the building.
To preserve character while meeting modern performance standards, the team installed interior storm windows in the historic openings and used replica windows where replacement was necessary.
The scale of the work is reflected in the project’s numbers:
Dining for all
According to Tomain, Cincinnati’s Fidelity Hotel was built as a hub for locals, not just for travelers.
That’s why The Gwynne restaurant will be helmed by Cincinnati chef Brad Bernstein and feature local and seasonsal dishes inspired by the “richness of the Ohio River Valley.” It will be open daily with varying hours.
Cora’s All Day Cafe, which offers coffee, pastries, grab-and-go lunch items, cocktails and more, will also host local programming and a market with pantry staples and handcrafted goods from Cincinnati artisans and small businesses. It will be open daily from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati’s Fidelity Hotel opens with French flair | Going In
Reporting by Sydney Franklin, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Sydney Franklin, Cincinnati Enquirer | USA TODAY Network
