INDIANAPOLIS — Construction is underway on a massive Indianapolis construction project valued at nearly $800 million.
When complete, it will reshape the skyline and could bring in $3 billion in business.
This site is well known as the Pan Am Plaza. It was built in 1987, when the city hosted the Pan Am Games. Now, work begins on a new role in Indy tourism — the Signia by Hilton Hotel.
The project is expected to take three years to complete. Plans call for 800 hotel rooms and a three-acre expansion of the Indiana Convention Center.
The City-County Council voted to take over the project back in May after a developer failed to get financing. The city is financing the hotel construction by issuing $510 million in bonds.
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The site cost is another $50 million. It's a big gamble, but Leonard Hoops, with Visit Indy, said Indianapolis has a history of winning these kinds of bets.
"From building a stadium without a football team to hosting the Pan Am Games to backing this project after the pandemic, this is just a city that goes for it," Hoops said.
Hoops said the city needs the project to keep the big conventions and events it already hosts and to attract new ones.
"This will help us keep about ($200 million) to $300 million of that $800 million a year we were at risk of losing, and add another ($200 million) to $300 million we couldn't if we didn't have this project," Hoops said.
The city began a search in June to find local contractors and businesses to work on the project.