Hotel Lunken

A shuttered 1936 Art Deco air terminal at Cincinnati's Lunken Airport is being converted into a 34-room hotel and restaurant by the team behind Hotel Covington, with completion targeted for late 2027. The $20.8 million project, built under a 50-year city lease, adds patios, a reflecting pool and 4,200 square feet of event space to the historic terminal.

The place

The hotel occupies the passenger terminal of Lunken Airport, in Cincinnati's East End along the Ohio River: a general-aviation field better known locally as a training airport than a stopover. The terminal sits apart from the runways, framed by lawns and a reflecting pool at the rear of the building.

The concept

Built in 1936 when Lunken ranked among the country's largest municipal airports, the two-story Art Deco terminal served commercial and general aviation for decades before falling vacant; its restaurant, the Sky Galley, closed in 2020, leaving only a police substation in use. Cincinnati signed a 50-year lease with developer Guy van Rooyen's Salyers Group (vR Group) in December 2025, at a nominal $1 annual rent plus a share of gross revenue, and construction began in January 2026 on a roughly $20.8 million conversion that includes a $2 million city grant. The room count was trimmed from an initial 55 to 34 after conflicts with FAA restrictions on structures near the airfield; the same team previously restored Hotel Covington across the river in Kentucky. A two-story addition on the north side will hold most of the guest rooms, with a suite planned inside the building's former control tower.

Dining & wellness

Not yet operating: the hotel remains under construction, with completion targeted for late 2027. Plans call for a ground-floor restaurant offering both an upscale dining room and casual walk-up service, a bar, three outdoor patios, a reflecting pool, an in-ground pool with cabanas, and roughly 4,200 square feet of event and ballroom space aimed at weddings.