The Keys and the Quarter
Ridgeline Development Partners targets a fourth-quarter 2026 completion for a 116-room Motto by Hilton at 1 N. Meridian St. in Indianapolis. IBJ reported in February 2025 that the developer planned to resume work in the second quarter of 2025. The hotel takes shape in the 11-story King Cole building, completed in 1915 and sitting just south of Monument Circle.
Ridgeline is a subsidiary of The Gettys Group, the Chicago hospitality design and development firm. Indy Propco LLC, an affiliate of both companies, has owned the building since early 2019.
The Block Base on the Record
The Indiana Convention Center's facility guide counts 4,721 hotel rooms connected to the Center, 7,175 rooms inside a six-block radius and 4,570 committable group rooms in the downtown area. Pedestrian skywalks link 4,717 of downtown's 7,200 total hotel rooms to the Center and Lucas Oil Stadium.
The 4,570 committable rooms set the ceiling for a downtown block. The skywalk network decides how much of that base a convention reaches indoors.
Visit Indy publishes the connected package on two pages. The connected-hotels page reads 12 hotels and 5,200 rooms connected, and more than 10,000 rooms within walking distance of the convention center once the downtown pipeline completes. The new-developments page reads 13 properties and 5,500 hotel rooms once the convention center expansion opens in December 2026.
The two counts measure different things. Connected rooms sit under one roof with the Center through enclosed skywalks. The walking-distance figure includes properties outside the skywalk network.
Where the New Inventory Lands
The address sits about 126 meters south of Monument Circle and 671 meters from the Indiana Convention Center entrance on a straight line, measured from OpenStreetMap coordinates resolved through Nominatim. Gettys and Ridgeline expect the hotel to open in the fourth quarter of 2026, roughly seven years after the project was first announced. Visit Indy dates the anticipated Motto opening to 2026.
The same delivery window holds the Indiana Convention Center expansion and the Signia Hilton Indianapolis. A planner blocking rooms for a late-2026 citywide contracts against a room base that grows during the cycle.
The Extension Behind the Date
The project has sought the conversion since 2019. The Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission extended the certificate of appropriateness by two years in early February 2025. The certificate had expired in 2023. The commission approved the extension unanimously, with one abstention.
The extension gives the schedule a preservation approval behind it. Room-count and completion-quarter language can now enter a contracting timeline for a late-2026 block.
What the Property Gives a Group
The plan keeps a rooftop bar and restaurant overlooking Monument Circle, plus a street-level cafe. Gettys and Ridgeline expect to add a street-level bar and lounge, likely in the space Qdoba occupied until it closed in late 2024. The basement could be reconfigured into a high-end restaurant.
Those outlets support reception and dine-around functions inside the hotel. The street-level cafe and bar open at the building's base on Meridian Street.
Open Items for the Block Request
No published source gives the property's meeting square footage, its banquet capacity or its group rate structure. A planner requesting a block should ask the developer to confirm all three.
Gettys plans to retain the Motto flag. The city approved $9.2 million in tax-increment financing bonds for the project in 2022, and Gettys anticipates using federal historic tax credits. The cost path ran from $21 million at announcement to $54 million by 2022 and a projected figure close to $60 million.
Three items carry dates: the second-quarter 2025 construction restart, the two-year certificate extension and the fourth-quarter 2026 completion target. Three carry no published answer: meeting space, banquet capacity and group rate. A block request for the King Cole building should name all six.