Planted at the edge of Columbus's Scioto Peninsula, where a former industrial waterfront has been remade into one of the Midwest's more quietly ambitious urban development zones, The Junto arrived in 2019 as the anchor property of the Confluence Village project. The eight-story building, clad in warm red brick with deep-set steel-framed windows, carries the massing vocabulary of a converted warehouse without actually being one — a new-build that earns its industrial register through material honesty rather than adaptive reuse nostalgia. Developed by graduate hotel group Graduate Hotels' parent company and named after Benjamin Franklin's intellectual society, the property holds around 180 rooms across its brick-and-dark-metal facade, the ground floor retail bays activating the street with the kind of color-blocked signage visible in the exterior images. Inside, the design team layered a palette that moves convincingly between registers: the lobby deploys coffered wood-paneled ceilings, a suspended glass-ring chandelier, leather strap chairs with bentwood frames, and sectional sofas in oatmeal linen arranged around a blackened steel suspended fireplace hood, the effect warm enough to suggest a private members' club. Guest rooms take two distinct directions — some finished in slate blue with wide-plank oak floors, channeled upholstered headboards in charcoal, and metal-framed lounge chairs with walnut arms; others leaning into teal two-tone walls with built-in window banquettes. The rooftop bar trades that warmth for something moodier: blacked-out ceilings, copper-shaded pendants, garage-door glass walls folding open to the terrace.

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The Junto is a 198-room independent lifestyle hotel in the Franklinton neighborhood of downtown Columbus, Ohio, operated by Makeready. Located at 77 Belle Street across from COSI and the Scioto River, it was named Midwest Living's 2026 Hotel of the Year. The hotel takes its name from Benjamin Franklin's club for mutual improvement, and the idea carries through: a lobby library, the Trade Room lounge with live music and talks, and the Gear Garage, where guests borrow e-bikes, cruiser bikes, longboards, and cameras at no charge. Rooms and suites feature smart TVs with streaming, in-room coffee, and window benches. On site: Little West Tavern for wood-hearth dining, Brass Eye rooftop bar, Maudine's coffee shop, a 24-hour fitness center, valet parking, and more than 13,000 sq ft of indoor and outdoor event space.