Canopy by Hilton Philadelphia Center City

Hilton's first Canopy hotel in Pennsylvania fills a 19th-century office building at the heart of the East Market development, pairing a preserved historic facade with a fully rebuilt interior. It opened in August 2020 as one of the first sizable new-build hotel operations in Center City after the pandemic shutdown.

The place

The hotel occupies the restored Stephen Girard Building at 12th and Ludlow Streets, the centerpiece of the East Market redevelopment in Center City, a few blocks from the Reading Terminal Market and Chinatown.

The concept

This was an $80 million adaptive reuse of a historic office building that had never operated as a hotel: the original masonry facade was preserved while the interior was entirely rebuilt behind it, becoming the first Pennsylvania outpost of Hilton's neighborhood-minded Canopy brand. Interiors by AvroKO lean into the building's commercial past with brass and salvage-inspired detailing, while local touches (Canopy loaner bikes, a rooftop terrace, complimentary evening tastings of Philadelphia beer, wine and spirits) are meant to plug guests into the surrounding East Market blocks rather than keep them inside a self-contained lobby.

Dining & wellness

The in-house restaurant and bar, The Wayward, serves American- and French-inspired plates through breakfast and a gin-forward happy hour, and the hotel adds roughly 3,600 square feet of indoor-outdoor meeting space plus a rooftop terrace and fitness room.