Miami-based Sound Hospitality Management has acquired the Clarion Hotel in downtown Raleigh for $9.35 million, according to Wake County property records.

The company acquired the cylindrical, 20-story hotel at 320 Hillsborough St. from Roundabout Partners LLC, a partnership that acquired the hotel in 2004.

Sound Hospitality also operates hotels in Miami, Coral Gables, Fla., Hialeah, Fla., Arlington, Va., and Columbus, Ohio.

Formerly a Holiday Inn, the 202-room Clarion was renamed in 2001. It first opened in 1969 and was one of 25 round motels conceived by Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson.

Sound Hospitality is entering the Triangle market at a time when the local hospitality industry is showing signs of improvement.

The hotel occupancy rate in the Triangle was 60.7 percent last year, up 7.8 percent from 2010, according to Smith Travel Research, a Tennessee company that tracks the lodging industry. Revenue per available room, a key industry statistic, was up 5 percent through the first six months of this year.

And hotel developers have proposed several new projects for the downtown area, which currently has about 1,000 hotel rooms. In Glenwood South, a 126-room Hampton Inn & Suites is under construction and is expected to open by the end of the year.

N.C. State University officials have selected a group of Raleigh developers and a Washington real estate firm to build a 125-room hotel on Hillsborough Street across from the school’s Bell Tower.

In June, the City Council selected a Raleigh development firm to bring an extended-stay hotel to vacant land near the convention center. Summit Hospitality Group plans to build an 11-story Residence Inn by Marriott with 140 to 154 rooms.