Omni to expand as Downtown Raleigh ups hotel offerings

Triangle Business Journal | July 11th, 2025

Downtown Raleigh’s long lack of appealing hotel space is rapidly changing, with more hotels coming and the Omni Hotel even adding rooms to its plans.

Loden Development recently announced a Warehouse District project with a 170-room hotel with a rooftop bar. And the Holiday Inn on Hillsborough Street will become a Hotel Indigo in 2026.

Dennis Edwards, CEO of the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau, said Omni now plans to go from 553 rooms to 600, a show of confidence in the market. The original plan was for 27 stories, but Edwards said adding rooms could mean the hotel rises “a couple of additional floors.”

“They did a lot of homework,” he said. “That tells us that what we know is definitely resonating on a national level.”

Edwards pointed to the large number of events, including youth sporting events, as one of the key “demand generators” for hotels. And he also said the plans for the expansion of the Convention Center, revamped Red Hat Amphitheater and the rise of Dix Park also bode well for hotels.

Raleigh has had more storied hotels in the past. But the iconic Yarborough Hotel on Fayetteville Street burned to the ground in 1928. And the Sir Walter Hotel, built in 1924 and once a center of Raleigh’s social scene, was converted to senior apartments.

The rise in hotels is significant, in that Edwards said major events at convention centers seek hotels within walking distance. Raleigh currently has five hotels and 1,189 rooms that fit that criteria, a number that will jump to 1,789 when the Omni opens, which he now expects to be sometime in 2028.

“That really puts us in position to get larger conventions and two conventions simultaneously,” he said. “That’s going to change things dramatically.”