Downtown Chicago Hotel To Open In 1997
<H1> Downtown Chicago Hotel To Open In 1997</H1>By Rowland Stiteler
<B>W</B>ith hotel occupancy in Chicago at a 10-year high and average room rate at a five-year high, hotel developers are building, planning and targeting corporate buyers.
A new 365-room, 15-story hotel within walking distance of Chicago's Loop and a short cab ride from the city's McCormick Place convention center will be open for business by the fall of 1997.
"The hotel is going to have location, amenities and price going for it, and we think the timing is right," said Dennis Langley, a principal in Montclair Hotel Investors Inc., which is developing the hotel in a former office building in downtown Chicago's Marina City district.
The property, which will face the Chicago River and offer connections with the city's water taxi system, will be located between State and Dearborn streets, Langley said. The developers' strategy, he said, will be to offer "four-star rooms for a three-star price" through savings on construction overhead.
Chicago-area hotel officials say interest in building new properties has heightened in the past year, as occupancy rates have risen to their highest peak since the mid-1980s. With the expansion of McCormick Place late next year, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which operates the big convention complex, is putting together financing to build a 400- to 800-room convention hotel near the center. And insiders in the industry say other new properties are on the horizon.
The Marina City hotel will be affiliated with a "top national hotel chain," Langley said, but he declined to name it. With about 7,000 square feet of meeting space, the hotel will not target large meeting groups, Langley said, but will be ideal for small groups and transient business travelers.
"We are going to offer oversized rooms-13.5 feet by 30 feet-complete with work stations that offer computer modem hook-ups," Langley said.
The hotel is being developed in partnership with Chicago developer John Marks, who is putting together a $70 million Marina City redevelopment project that will include the Chicago branch of the House of Blues, a $15 million entertainment complex that is under construction. The House of Blues will include a 1,500-seat auditorium.
The developers originally envisioned a 400-room hotel that would target what House of Blues founder Isaac Tigrett called "hip" travelers in the 25-to-45 age group. But the plan has evolved to target business travelers who would value the hotel's proximity to the Loop and other downtown business locations.