The Round Hotel on Hillsborough Street Finally Faces the Street

"The view from the top floor was the best in Raleigh," Cindy Trowbridge told Midtown Magazine. She took a part-time serving job at the round hotel in 1974, when she was in her early 20s and just out of college. In her telling, guests dressed for dinner, the tips were good, the bar filled on nights a pianist played, and Doc Watson was one of the people she served.

Fifty-two years later, the building at 320 Hillsborough Street is reopening this week as Hotel Indigo Raleigh. The date depends on who you ask. ABC11 reported a Tuesday, September 29 reopening. DoRaleigh's September 28 roundup listed Thursday, October 1. The hotel's own homepage already shows its top-floor lounge as open.

Most coverage has focused on the $36 million price tag and the 204 guest rooms. The bigger change for anyone who lives in Raleigh is how you get in. For decades this was a building you drove up to. It has been rebuilt to be used from the sidewalk, and most of the new public space is aimed at people who will never book a room.

A landmark that almost didn't make it to this week

The round hotel opened in 1969 and was Raleigh's tallest building for eight years. Over the years it picked up the nickname "Hair Curler," and former employees called it "the Beer Can." The Austin, Texas firm Lundgren and Maurer designed it as a Modernist tower. It has a circular five-story base, a 13-story guestroom tower and a cantilevered top floor for dining and meetings.

It ran as a Clarion through the 2000s and early 2010s. A Miami developer renovated it in 2012 and brought it back under Holiday Inn management, and Tidal Real Estate Partners bought it in 2021. In 2022, Tidal announced plans to tear the building down and replace it with a tower for a luxury hotel, apartments and restaurant space. Tidal changed course in June 2025 and decided to convert the existing building. Raleigh City Council then made it a historic landmark under the name State Capitol Holiday Inn, effective December 2, 2025.

Carlos Faz, the hotel's general manager, told ABC11 why the building's survival matters beyond Raleigh: "There's only nine left in the United States and so we are one of those nine left." Holiday Inn built only a small number of these round hotels.

The landmark designation protects the outside of the building. The city's report lists the circular tower, the decorative concrete breeze-block screens and the porte-cochere as defining features that were kept. It also records that the balconies were enclosed in 2005 and that the rear pool is gone. So the silhouette you see from Hillsborough Street is the same one Raleigh has seen since 1969. Everything inside it has changed.

Street level now opens onto Hillsborough

Raleigh Magazine reported that the 1960s drive-up arrival has been replaced. The lobby now opens onto Hillsborough Street through a glass entrance, and parking is valet only. That makes the building something you can walk into from the sidewalk.

Behind the new entrance, the architecture firm ESa removed a cluster of small ground-floor rooms to make one larger, brighter community lounge. Midtown Magazine describes that lounge as meant for local residents and people who work downtown as well as hotel guests.

The interiors come from INC Architecture & Design, a New York firm whose past work includes the restored TWA Hotel and 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge. The designers leaned into the curves. The furniture echoes the original design, a new coffered ceiling references the building's architecture, and the carpet patterns follow the layout of the rooms.

"It's quite a specific building, with a lot of idiosyncrasies. And what we tried to do is explore ways to promote them and have them come through in the design while at the same time bringing everything in the interior up to what a modern traveler would be looking for." Eyal Einik, principal at Tidal Real Estate Partners, to Raleigh Magazine

Almost all of the art comes from North Carolina artists, which gives Raleigh residents a reason to stop in even if they never go upstairs. The lobby displays needleprints by Caitlin Cary. The public spaces also include work by Raleigh artists Ryan Fox, Skillet Gilmore and Micah Mullen, Durham artists Katie Hatfield and Jordan Grace Owens, Darrell Dean of Winston-Salem and Gabe Fonorow of Kernersville. The pantry stocks goods from local vendors as well.

The courtyard Airstream

The most casual way in is the courtyard. A vintage Airstream serves as a coffee bar there, linking the arrival area to check-in. On its IHG dining page, the hotel says it serves coffee from the Airstream, with snacks and drinks from its Marketplace.

When the renderings came out in June, Raleigh Magazine described the courtyard as a planted space with seating where guests and locals could both spend time. It also mentioned local vendors pouring drinks from the Airstream in summer, along with other events. That description came from the planning stage, so ask at the hotel about what's actually on the courtyard schedule this fall.

Twenty floors up, and why the event room survived

The rest of the renovation leads up to High Ground Lounge on the 20th floor. The hotel markets it as a penthouse cocktail spot with skyline views of downtown. Midtown Magazine describes the food as contemporary Southern, served alongside craft cocktails and a curated drinks program. One quirk is that the city's landmark report calls the building 19 stories, while the hotel and IHG place High Ground on the 20th floor.

Raleigh Magazine called the top floor "public-facing." Denver-based Sage Hospitality Group runs it, with food that includes breakfast, local beers, a private dining room and flexible event space. According to Einik, Tidal considered turning the whole floor into a larger restaurant. They kept the event venue because of what longtime residents kept telling them. "The story more often than not was something like 'I had my prom up there,' or 'I went to a friend's wedding up there,'" he said. "We just felt like we couldn't lose that."

That decision brings the story back to Trowbridge. The top floor where she served dinner in 1974 is once again a place to eat and drink, and the room where Raleigh held proms and wedding receptions is still available to book.

What's published, and what isn't yet

Here is what the hotel's own pages list right now:

Some practical questions are still open, and they matter most to people who are not staying the night. The dining page lists a phone number but no reservation link, and it doesn't say whether High Ground takes walk-ins. The hotel's pages also disagree on parking. The FAQ says parking is for registered guests only. The directions page says it is open to hotel customers, guests and visitors. If you're driving in for a drink, call 919-832-0501 before you go.

You can skip the parking question entirely by walking. The new glass entrance opens directly onto the Hillsborough Street sidewalk, which is the main point of the renovation. For the first time since 1969, you can walk in off the sidewalk, get coffee in the courtyard, look at Caitlin Cary's needleprints in the lobby and ride the elevator 20 floors up for a view the city went without while the hotel was closed.

When a Raleigh landmark comes back to life, it changes how people use the blocks around it. If you own a home near the Hillsborough Street corridor and want to know how downtown's changes affect your property, the Angela Drum team can walk you through it. Request a complimentary market strategy and home valuation.