Omni breaks ground on $360M Downtown Raleigh hotel with 600 rooms

Triangle Business Journal | 02.13.2026

Fencing is up and site work has begun on the upcoming Omni Hotel in Downtown Raleigh.

Omni Hotels & Resorts of Dallas will officially break ground this month on its 600-room, 29-story hotel and is targeting opening toward the end of 2028. The site at 10 W. South St. (formerly parking lots) is located directly across from the Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts.

Omni’s groundbreaking ceremony will take place later this spring.

“We’ve been working on this a very long time and super excited to finally have it at a point where we can actually start construction,” said Brian Zelman, vice president of development at Omni.

The Raleigh Omni will join Charlotte and Asheville as the third North Carolina hotel.

Zelman said the $360 million project took roots back in 2018. He said Raleigh checked plenty of boxes for the hotel operator: it’s a capital city with a diverse economy and a big talent pool fed by universities.

The City of Raleigh is contributing $75 million to the hotel project to support infrastructure improvements. Omni has a 99-year lease in place with the city at $75,000 per year.

The hotel will have three levels of underground parking with 278 spaces. The hotel’s lobby is intentionally designed as a place where locals and guests can come together over a coffee or a drink from the bar, have meetings or just relax.

“We always say that we like to build our lobbies to be the living room of the community,” Zelman said.

Omni will operate a coffee shop, a Bob’s Steak and Chop House and a sports bar with a virtual hitting bay for golf and other active sports.

“This should be the best sports bar by a long shot in the market,” Zelman said.

The hotel will also feature 60,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 10,000-square-foot junior ballroom and a 20,000-square-foot grand ballroom. The fifth floor pool deck will have a full-service restaurant.

“Food and beverage and culinary is a huge emphasis for us, and one of our competitive advantages, so we over-program from a food and beverage standpoint,” Zelman said. “We have a ton of restaurants in here … It’s aimed at a) creating an incredible guest experience, but b) giving the locals something to do and something to kind of enjoy as a big community asset.”

The Omni’s wellness and fitness center will include men’s and women’s locker rooms, saunas, cold plunges, yoga and Pilates spaces.

“We’ve really built out this fitness and wellness space beyond what we’ve done in the past at other hotels,” Zelman said.

Zelman said the Omni’s presence will only benefit other hotels downtown, especially with the expanded Raleigh Convention Center’s ability to land more business. With Omni bringing an elevated hotel option to downtown, “I think that should be a windfall for all hotels in the downtown market,” he said.

Zelman expects a healthy mix of convention travelers as well as other business and leisure travelers.

“We certainly are not closing the door to further development in North Carolina,” Zelman said.