New renderings were unveiled this week for Hotel Water Square, a hotel planned for the Joe Louis Arena site that will connect to Huntington Place.
The hotel, which is being developed by Sterling Group, will be on the same site as The Residences at Water Square where the former Red Wings arena used to be.
According to a presentation for a community benefits meeting this week, the hotel will be 25 stories tall, have 600 rooms, 50,000 square feet of event space, two restaurants, a lobby bar, a market, fitness center and a skybridge to Huntington Place.
The plan also includes an expansion of 2nd Ave. between Huntington Place and the hotel that would connect it to the Detroit Riverfront and include a greenway.
According to Visit Detroit, which presented during the meeting, Huntington Place is the 16th largest convention center in the country and hosts 10-12 citywide conventions a year. However, Visit Detroit said it's capable of hosting 20-25 conventions.
Visit Detroit said that they bid on 160 events that preferred a connected hotel, and not having a connected convention center hotel means that Detroit has lost out on 10 additional events a year and more than $500 million in spending.
Those events, according to Visit Detroit, are going to other Midwest cities that have a hotel connected to the convention center like Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago, Minneapolis and more.
The bureau said that a connected hotel would mean $100 million a year more in spending from visitors and more events at Huntington Place.
