Across Jackson Place from the Union Station head house, the Omni Severin Hotel has welcomed guests since 1913, when Henry Severin Jr. built it on the site of the burned Grand Hotel. Across Jackson Place you can see the Union Station head house. Henry Severin Jr. built the hotel with help from Indianapolis Motor Speedway founders Carl G. Fisher and James A. Allison, on the site of the Grand Hotel that opened in 1876 and burned in 1905.
The Severin’s first public event was the Christamore Settlement Ball on August 22, 1913, and its first registered guest the next day was Indiana Congressman James Eli Watson. Later histories are written into its ownership: Warren M. Atkinson bought the hotel in 1966, invested $2.5 million in renovation and renamed it The Atkinson of Indianapolis. Mansur Development Corporation acquired it in July 1988 and completed a $40 million restoration and expansion that added two wings to the back of the original 1913 building, creating a U-shaped plan.
The hotel is a member of Historic Hotels of America. Mansur Development Corporation's 1988 restoration added two wings behind the original 1913 building, shaping the U-shaped plan you see today.