South Korea-based hotel firm planning high-end hotel with 215 rooms in Westfield

Seoul, South Korea-based Lotte Hotels & Resorts plans to expand its presence in the United States with a five-story, high-end hotel in Westfield.

Plans call for the 215-room L7 Westfield hotel to be built on 6.5 acres in the Lantern Commons development near the intersection of U.S. 31 and 161st Street.

According to industry publications in South Korea, the project will include the 144,600-square-foot hotel and a 10,600-square-foot commercial space. Construction is expected to begin in the second half of next year and the hotel could open in early 2028. Los Angeles-based Andmore Partners Inc. will be the architectural firm for the project.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee-based Front Street Partners LLC is the master developer of the 60-acre Lantern Commons project. Front Street is currently developing a 320-unit apartment building, and other retail uses are planned at the site.

Mayor Scott Willis said the five-story hotel fits the model for what he wants to see along the U.S. 31 corridor in Westfield.

“It’s beautiful. I’m so excited about it,” he said. “It’s even taller than [software product design and development firm] SEP’s corporate headquarters. We want verticality at those types of intersections, and they’re certainly going to bring that.”

Lotte Hotels & Resorts, the hospitality division of multinational conglomerate Lotte Corp., is the largest luxury hotel chain in South Korea. In recent years, the company has expanded beyond Asia with four hotels in the United States under various brands in Chicago, Guam, New York and Seattle. The firm also has hotels in Japan, Myanmar, Russia, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Gary Perel, a real estate broker with Indianapolis-based ALO Property Group LLC, worked with Lotte Hotels & Resorts and developers to place the L7 Westfield hotel at Lantern Commons.

The hotel will be about 30 miles away from a pair of electric-vehicle battery plants planned in Kokomo by automaker Stellantis and battery maker Samsung SDI that will have a combined 2,800 employees.

Stellantis and Samsung SDI first announced plans in May 2022 to build a $2.5 billion electric-vehicle battery plant. The companies announced a year ago that they would invest $3.2 billion into a second electric battery plant.

“A lot of [South Korea-based Samsung SDI’s] employees that are coming in are wanting to stay in Westfield because of our school district, the diversity we have here, just the amenities, so this hotel is kind of a starting point of them putting a presence in Westfield,” Willis said.

Perel said Lotte Hotels & Resorts representatives initially looked at Kokomo, but later decided Westfield was the right place to build a hotel aimed at giving employees and executives of Samsung SDI a place to stay while visiting central Indiana.

“This made sense as the next-best location in terms of being amenity-driven, an area that had other synergistic components like Grand Park and, of course, the Meridian corridor with 8 million square feet of Class A office space,” Perel said.

The L7 Westfield hotel will be Lotte Hotels & Resorts’ second L7-branded hotel in the U.S. In June, the company opened the 191-room, 14-story L7 Chicago in a century-old building near the Chicago River at the corner of North Wabash Avenue and East Wacker Place. The four-star L7 Chicago hotel features the Perilla Korean American Steakhouse.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that in-room amenities at L7 Chicago include Nespresso machines, Molekule air purifiers and wellness baskets that come with yoga mats, light weights, stretch bands and massage balls.

Perel stayed at L7 Chicago this summer and said the closest comparison in the immediate area is Carmel’s Hotel Carmichael. The 122-room Hotel Carmichael developed by Carmel-based Pedcor opened in 2020 across the Monon Greenway from the Center for the Performing Arts.

“I really liked it. I thought it’s a great, great product. It’s really cool with well-thought-out rooms and really nice amenities that you don’t see a lot,” he said. “It’s a well-thought-out concept. It’s a little different than your typical American brand.”