IHG Hotels & Resorts is bringing its recently acquired hotel brand Ruby Hotels to the U.S. for the first time.
The British hotel firm said the Germany-based Ruby Group would develop and manage a hotel in Chicago — full name not released yet — under a 30-year lease. As part of a partnership with a California-based developer Berk Properties, the hotel is due to open in 2027.
Located one street away from Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, the hotel will be a 22-floor conversion of the Inn of Chicago at 162 E. Ohio St., according to an IHG news release.
The hotel was first opened in 1928 as the Hotel St. Clair, and it was last renovated in 2009. Renovations this time around are slated to begin in the second half of this year, according to IHG.
According to CoStar data, the hotel's owner is Laguna Beach, California-based New California Hotels Corp. New California acquired the independent hotel for approximately $13.5 million from New York City-based Stabilis Capital Management in March 2021.
In February 2006, IOC Hotel LLC, a joint venture between Oxford Lodging Advisory & Investment Group LLC and a subsidiary of Dubai Investment Group, acquired the hotel from Chicago Title Land Trust Co. Trust for approximately $31.5 million. At that time, the hotel had 359 rooms.
IHG and Ruby are planning for 412 rooms, almost a 15% increase.
IHG acquired the Germany-based Ruby Hotels brand in February 2025 for $115.8 million. The deal did not include Ruby’s operating company, which will continue to manage all Ruby hotels open and currently in development.
Commenting on IHG's acquisition of Ruby Hotels, IHG CEO Elie Maalouf said it "just really hits the spot in an area we have been looking at, urban micro. It is something we can scale up very quickly.”
At that time, Ruby’s portfolio contained 20 hotels and 3,483 rooms, all in Europe, and a pipeline of 10 hotels and more than 2,200 rooms. Today, it has 21 opened hotels, with its latest, the 164-room Ruby Giulia debuting in Rome in October 2025.
The Ruby in Chicago will make the U.S. the brand’s ninth country.