Kimpton, Buck Ready $80M Hotel-Apartments

The boutique hotel will have 260 rooms with a rental rate of about $200 per night. San Francisco-based Kimpton has three other properties in Chicago, including the Hotel Monaco, Hotel Burnham and Hotel Allegro, but this is the first building north of the Chicago River for the company. "It's going to be great to have our brand in this different area," says a Kimpton spokeswoman. "We think that being boutique, we'll fit right in and we'll have a lot of value for our rate."

While some might question a new hotel during this down economy, this project has been in the making for more than four years. Developer John Buck has been planning a project on this site, even though many visitors and workers downtown enjoyed the park-like open space that had been there outside the AMA building. "We've had more comments about that then you can imagine," the spokeswoman tells GlobeSt.com.

She says that though Chicago hotel properties are down in both occupancy and rental rates, there is still a brisk business. However, there's been some needed changes in bringing in that business, she says. "We've replaced a lot of our corporate marketing with leisure marketing. Chicago is an easy drive from a lot of states, an easy, inexpensive vacation in this economy. Where we used to go 80% after the business class client, we've dropped that down to 60% in favor of leisure users."

Buck is developing the upper floors in a venture with the land owner, Royal Properties. The units will be rented, with the ability to convert them to for-sale housing in three years. Though there will be two separate lobbies, the upper units will share the 17th floor with the hotel, which has a pool and health club, as well as having access to the hotel restaurant room service and cleaning. Bridgestreet Worldwide will manage the upper floors.