https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...n-market-hotel
July 22, 2019 10:43 AM |updated 4 hours ago
Architect plans 20-story Fulton Market hotel
FitzGerald Associates Architects wants to develop a 200-room hotel on this surface parking lot at 920 W. Lake St.
After striking out with a plan to build apartments in the fast-changing Fulton Market District, Chicago architect Patrick FitzGerald is turning to the hotel market.
FitzGerald this week will publicly unveil a proposal for a 20-story, 200-room hotel at 920 W. Lake St. in the trendy corridor, according to the West Loop Community Organization, a neighborhood group hosting a meeting to review the development plan.
The proposal for the northeast corner of Lake and Sangamon streets adds to a recent batch of hotels in the works for the former meatpacking district and a run of planned buildings in the corridor that would rise around 20 stories, drastically changing the physical character of a neighborhood known for its low-slung industrial buildings.
FitzGerald Associates Architects pivoted from its original plan to develop an 81-unit apartment building on the site. That plan, floated in 2015, didn't square with 27th Ward Ald. Walter Burnett's policy of blocking new residential development in Fulton Market north of Lake Street.
The site is a parking lot next to the Lake Street Lofts apartment building, which FitzGerald also owns. The newly proposed hotel would rise 244 feet and include about 4,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space, according to WLCO Executive Director Carla Agostinelli.
A FitzGerald spokesman confirmed it is teaming up with Skokie-based real estate investor F&F Realty on a planned hotel for the site but declined to share specifics of the proposal. FitzGerald and F&F recently worked together on an apartment tower at 727 W. Madison St., the West Loop's tallest building west of the Kennedy Expressway.
The brand for the hotel is unclear, but Agostinelli said it would be a "common brand that people will feel comfortable staying in without having to pay high-end dollars" for some of the other hotel options materializing in Fulton Market.
FitzGerald's hotel is one of the largest proposed to date in a neighborhood where the hospitality market is starting to fill up. With corporate guest demand expected to rise from Google, McDonald's, Mondelez International and other companies moving into Fulton Market, developers have now opened or proposed hotels there totaling well over 1,000 rooms. Among those that have opened: the 159-room Ace hotel, which is up for sale next to Google's Midwest headquarters, and the 182-room Hoxton Hotel that opened in April at 200 N. Green St. The 119-room Nobu Hotel is on track to open later this year at 155 N. Peoria St.
Several others have been proposed this year as the neighborhood transitions into a corporate destination and with Chicago on a streak of seven consecutive years of record-high tourism to the city.
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