posted by chicago pop
The symbol of the University of Chicago is, being situated in a city famous for having once burnt to the ground, a phoenix. The symbolism remains vital, as the hotel that Hyde Park almost got in the 5th Ward on Stony Island and 58th Street will now be resurrected and take shape on the site of the old Harper Court, on Harper at 52nd.
The 53rd Street renaissance continues at a dizzying pace.
From Curbed Chicago:
Harper Court Partners released some details this morning about the hotel operator for Hyde Park's Harper Court. Olympia Chicago LLC and Smart Hotels, a company that specializes in campus hotels, have been selected to build and operate Hyatt Place Chicago @ Hyde Park. The six-story, 130-room hotel will be located on Harper, just north of 52nd Place, according to Christopher Dillion from Vermilion Development. The hotel, which is set to open in 2013, will feature underground parking, a restaurant, wine bar, pool, and fitness facilities....
From Crain's Chicago Business:
“A quality hotel has been a longstanding need for the community,” Dave Cocagne, president of Chicago-based Vermilion, says in the statement. “It will play a key role in the development of the 53rd Street corridor.”And, from the developers themselves:Financing for the hotel is being provided by Recovery Zone Facility Bonds to be issued by the Illinois Finance Authority. Smart specializes in campus hotels, though no properties are identified on the company’s website, while Olympia operates 16 hotels, according to Vermilion’s press release.
Vermilion tapped the Smart Hotels-Olympia venture after issuing a request for proposals from hoteliers last fall.
Mr. Cocagne in January said Vermilion had letters of intent for 60% of the project’s roughly 80,000 square feet of retail space. The first phase, which has a roughly $100-million budget, is to include the hotel, retail and a 150,000-square-foot office building to be used at least partially by the university.
Smart Hotels/Olympia Chicago LLC has been selected to build and operate the hotel, planned for Harper Avenue, just north of 53rd Street. Plans call for the LEED-designed hotel to have approximately 130 rooms, [and be] a destination on evenings and weekends, as well as during the work week.
Ed Small, President of Smart Hotels, said his team looks forward to presenting the preliminary hotel design to the community in March.
"This is an outstanding opportunity for us to bring a quality, environmentally-friendly hotel to Hyde Park," Small said. "The University, the City, IFA and MB Financial did extraordinary work to help us secure the project financing."
Hyatt Place Chicago @ Hyde Park is scheduled to open in 2013, to coincide with Phase I of the Harper Court redevelopment, which will also include retail, office, and outdoor spaces. Chicago-based LEgat Architects has been engaged to design the hotel.
The Olympia Companies has been in operation since 1969 and currently operates 16 hotel properties.
"We are excited to extent our portfolio of hotels to such a dynamic community and world-class university," said Kevin Mahaney, President and CEO of The Olympia Companies.
20 comments:
No concern about drunken bar mitzvahs? We need a study to determine how this will change the weather patterns in E. Hyde Park.
Let's see em try to vote 53rd St dry!
This is terrible. The "Sorry, there's no good place for you to stay in the neighborhood" excuse to out-of-town relatives won't work anymore! What ever were they thinking?
This will most certainly affect someone's viewshed someplace. Not to mention redirecting the wind in ways nobody can predict. Clearly all plans need to cleared and approved by a special "committe"... after they've grown well tired of screaming and demanding the impossible...
Chicago Pop - is there any way to set up blogger to have a share link/retweet button at the bottom of each post? I'm planning on re-tweeting this anyway, but having a button for the post would be great and might get you more hits.
This is fantastic news and this location might be better than the Stony Island locale anyway since there is more opportunity for commercial development around the hotel at 53rd.
The best part is that there will likely be a lot more restaurants near the hotel that can draw business away from Medici. Heh, heh.
Dudes, you're persuading me to get hip and accessorize this blog. Look out.
Look to the lower left, gents.
HPP Facebook page also coming up.
What great news.
I've been wondering where all the "preservationists" have gone now that demo work has started at Doctors Hospital. Surely they weren't just using historic preservation as an excuse to keep a hotel out of their backyards.
In other news, the nail salon that was going into the old Hookah Lounge space on 55th St seems to have morphed into a comic book store. Hooray!
When did Noon Hookah lounge close??
I grew up in Chicago. Always lived on the South side. Still miss it. On the other hand, I'm sorry to hear Hyde Park is losing the balance of being a unique place to live, work and enjoy something that is (sadly)disappearing all over--small shops and intimate, creative places to hang out in urban cities.
I know people from all over the world love to visit Hyde Park and having a place to stay is cool. But wow, it brings the reality home that things have changed drastically since I left.
I was in Chicago last summer but couldn't make it to Hyde Park. Plan to visit this Summer. Still love Chi! No place like it.
Hey, Chason -
If that was a rant, I don't mind. You basically summarized much of what this blog has been saying and trying to remedy.
If they weren't so hard to find, establishments such as Powell's and Z&H (and small Hyde Park retailers in general) might stand a chance of attracting tourists.
One awful obstruction is that DO NOT ENTER (aka VISITORS STAY OUT) sign for westbound 57th Street at Stony Island. We have attempted to re-open 57th to westbound traffic, and were pretty close, but once again Alderman Hairston allowed a few self-indulged objectors to make her backbone buckle. The street remains closed. It wasn't always closed, and it need not remain that way. Re-opening it would make a world of difference.
Interesting discussion above. On the instrument repair shop that keeps itself secret, there is something going on there. I'm not sure what, but it's about businesses that don't really want to do business, or not too much. Some of those are OK, and have a place, but when it comes to define a general business culture, it gets weird. (getting back to the 'barcade' story).
Random thoughts:
1) I too was terribly amused (but not at all surprised) by the negative reactions quoted in the Herald. Would we expect anything else from the Herald? The University (and the developer) would do themselves a favor by making the renderings widely available on the Internettubes thingie, assuming they are not totally hideous.
2) How long before we start hearing complaints that the hotel is too expensive, and therefore exclusionary? Last year I had occasion to stay the Penn campus hotel. On short notice, that sucker was almost $400 a night.
3) It's interesting to note that, had 55th Street not been demolished and re-zoned and rebuilt residential all those decades ago, this would be happening on the front door of the Golden Rectangle. As it stands, the region between 55th and 59th will now have the chance to become the sleepy backwater many of its activist residents seem to want it to be.
Just to clarify: First Aid Comics is moving from 53rd Street to the old Hookah Lounge location in May. The rent is higher, but James Nurss hopes that the increased foot traffic from being in a ground-level storefront will make all the difference.
It's a hip local business, so get out there and buy comics, guys!
What's wrong with a nail salon? I've nothing against First Aid comics, but some of us prefer a good mani/pedi!
I am only bummed that I'm all done with my kids' bar and bat mitzvahs, not for drunken party locale, but for convenient place for relatives to stay.
Also, that coffee shop that took over from Istria-- Cafe 57-- was really hopping today. Just like in a normal neighborhood.
Naomi and others: we've heard from a lot of people how wonderfully the new management is doing with the old Istria Cafe. If you're a fan and would like to write up a little article (maybe interview the owner about her experience taking over the shop), feel free to submit it to Chicago Pop as a guest post. Chicago.Pop@gmail.com.
My understanding is Noon Hookah was (also?) having trouble with the no-smoking-in-places-where-food-is-served ordinance. Without their food, they weren't going to make enough money for rent, and without the hookahs, well, they're not a hookah place anymore.
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