The Marriott-brand hotel planned in downtown Milwaukee’s Deer District is being renamed and upgraded from a Moxy Hotel to an AC Hotel by Marriott, Middleton-based developer North Central Group Hospitality announced Friday.

Meanwhile, NCG’s planned hotel in the Third Ward, originally proposed as an AC Hotel, is being “repositioned” as an upscale boutique hotel under a yet-to-be-determined brand.

The $50 million Deer District hotel development gained final approval from the Milwaukee Common Council in June 2025 and is expected to break ground this summer at 430 W. State St., on the southeast quadrant of the former Bradley Center site near the new Landmark Credit Union Live music venue.

The project’s approved specifications — 156 rooms, seven stories and exterior materials — remain unchanged under the new flag. The hotel will include AC-branded dining offerings as well as media salons, meeting space, a fitness center and other public spaces.

NCG Hospitality, which is also the developer behind The Trade, a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel that opened in Deer District in May 2023, says the AC Hotel brand is better positioned for the kinds of visitors drawn by events at Fiserv Forum, Landmark Live and the newly expanded Baird Center.

With a playful, stylish and affordable brand geared toward younger travelers, the Moxy was initially described as an “ideal destination for concertgoers” at the new Deer District venue — similar to the Moxy Madison Downtown hotel that NCG opened in 2024 next to The Sylvee, a 2,500-capacity live music venue. Both The Sylvee and Landmark Live are operated by Madison-based FPC Live, a subsidiary of Live Nation.

NCG also operates an AC Hotel in downtown Madison, making the Milwaukee property the second AC Hotel in Wisconsin. Marriott has more than 150 AC Hotels around the world.

In today’s highly segmented hotel industry, there’s not too much variance between what a traveler gets from a Moxy versus AC Hotel; the difference is in the segments they each target, said Greg Hanis, hotel industry analyst and president of Hospitality Marketers International Inc.

“The AC (brand) is maybe a bit more trendy toward the upscale traveler, the 40- to 50- to 60-year-old group. The Moxy is more trendy toward the younger generation, under 40,” said Hanis. “… I mean if you look at the Moxy website, for example, it says ‘Check in at the bar.'”

NCG secured the rights to the AC Hotel brand in 2025, with initial plans to convert a century-old building in the Third Ward into a 133-room AC Hotel by Marriott. That project is now shifting to an “upscale boutique hotel,” and NCG has not yet landed on a brand.

Announced in July 2025, the proposed Third Ward hotel would be located at 224 E. Chicago St., inside a three-story, 83,260-square-foot building originally constructed in 1917 for Monarch Manufacturing Co. A portion of the building was most recently home to a Restoration Hardware Outlet store, which closed March 1 after a decade.