The La Quinta Inn & Suites hotel will have 241 guest roomsand is expected to open next fall. Two wings will be added to thebuilding, which was constructed in 1958. A 21,000-sf wing will beconstructed closest to Madison Street and a 24,000-sf wingconstructed closest to Arcade Place. The 131,000-sf hotel will haveabout 1,500 sf of meeting space and 3,627 sf of restaurant andretail space, Weiss tells GlobeSt.com.

The hotel will also have a business center, an indoor heatedswimming pool, a spa and an exercise room and will feature fourdifferent room layouts including two-room suites. The location nearthe lakefront and the city's museums "do make us an attractivealternative," he says. The architect for the project is locallybased A. Epstein & Sons International and the contractor isWilliam A. Randolph Inc., based in Gurnee, IL.

There are 11 La Quinta hotels in the Chicagoland area but thiswill be the first one in the city of Chicago. LQ managementoperates and provides franchise services for more than 600 LaQuinta Inn and La Quinta Inn & Suites hotels in 45 states inaddition to Canada. The hotel brand did not expand into the Midwestuntil it acquired the Baymont brand in 2004, he says. The companythen began to specifically look in Chicago to construct a hotel "Wesaw there was a demand for moderately priced lodging in the marketplace and not a lot of supply to meet it," Weiss says. "Inparticular, there's really no moderately priced lodging at allwithin the Loop."