Baltimore's city-owned Hilton posts lowest revenue per room since 2009
The 757-room hotel recorded a 52.3% occupancy rate in 2025 while the city has spent $143.7 million to keep it running.
By Jessica Abebe ·
Baltimore's city-owned convention center hotel recorded its weakest year on record in 2025, according to a financial disclosure released last week.
The Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor, the largest hotel in the region with 757 rooms, ran at an occupancy rate of 52.3% in 2025, down from a peak of 71.7% in 2013. It was the lowest rate outside the 2020 through 2023 pandemic years. Average nightly rates reached a record $203.90, but revenue per available room, the standard industry measure, fell to $106.60, the lowest since the hotel's first full year in 2009. Adjusted for inflation, 2025 was the weakest year since the hotel opened.
Kevin Seawright, executive vice president and chief operating and financial officer at the Baltimore Development Corp., which oversees the property, called 2025 a transition year and said hotels across the city struggled "with room-night cancellations at their highest level since COVID." Hotels in Baltimore's central business district posted a 55.7% occupancy rate that year, according to data from the real estate analytics firm CoStar.
Seawright said the hotel has improved in 2026, with revenue up over 2025 and moving back toward pre-COVID levels. He pointed to bookings for All Blacks Rugby, Morgan Wallen, BTS and Jack and Jill, along with group business through Visit Baltimore. CoStar data shows the central business district's hotel room count has fallen nearly 6% since January 2025, from 8,367 to 7,874, reducing the number of competing properties. The Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel closed at the start of this year.
The city borrowed about $300 million in bonds to build the hotel, most of which remains unpaid. The property was intended to generate revenue for Baltimore but opened during the Great Recession and has never met its projected revenue or occupancy targets. The city has spent and refunded $143.7 million to support it. A consultant projected before opening that revenue per available room would exceed $184 in 2017 and continue rising.
More supply is planned nearby. MCB Real Estate is developing a 212-room luxury hotel as part of its Harborplace redevelopment, with an average nightly rate of $550, a few blocks from the city-owned property.
