Two Baltimore hotels have received major face-lifts just in time for the summer tourist season.
The InterContinental Hotels Group announced on Thursday the opening of its first Hotel Indigo in Maryland, located at the former YMCA in Mount Vernon, and the Royal Sonesta Harbor Court Hotel completed a more than $10 million renovation to its Light Street property this month.
The Hotel Indigo at 24 W. Franklin St. was run as a hotel by the former Baltimore International College. It was sold to new owners last year after the school became a part of Stratford University.
The property, which dates to 1907 and is around the corner from the Enoch Pratt Free Library, now has about 165 rooms, with a fitness center, lobby library and restaurant and bar called Poets Modern Cocktails & Eats.
Owned by MVH Baltimore LLC — a partnership that includes Baltimore-based Focus Development and York, Pa.-based Kinsley Equities — the building is managed by Chesapeake Hospitality. The renovation cost about $14 million and the first guest stayed on Wednesday night, said Shaffin Jetha of Focus Development.
The renovation of the Royal Sonesta in the Inner Harbor increased the number of rooms from 195 to 203, with 21 suites, and updated the rooms, meeting space and lobby area with a new colored-glass chandelier.
It's the first major renovation since the hotel opened around 1985, said Tim Mattos, the hotel's director of sales and marketing. The property, formerly the InterContinental Harbor Court, became a Royal Sonesta in 2012.
Sonesta Hotels & Resorts, based in Newton, Mass., operates seven other U.S. properties and 30 more around the world, including a dozen in Egypt. It also runs a group of 17 extended-stay hotels called Sonesta ES Suites.