Hotel Arista To Join $300M CityGate Project

NAPERVILLE, IL-Hotel Arista is expected to open this fall at CityGate Centre, a 31-acre mixed-use development at the interchange of Interstate 88 and Route 59. Chicago-based Calamos Real Estate LLC is developing the project. When completed, the development is expected to have one million sf of office space and 150,000 sf of retail space, in addition to the hotel, says Karla Harmon, senior director of leasing for Calamos Real Estate.

The estimated cost of the hotel is approximately $43 million, says John Calamos Sr. The entire CityGate development is approximately $300 million, he says.

Hotel Arista, which means “best” in Greece, will have 144 rooms, and conference and banquet facilities for up to 450 people, Calamos says. The 12-story hotel will also have a spa, salon, fitness center and restaurants. Chicago-based Lohan Anderson LLC designed the facility. A company has not been chosen yet to manage the hotel, he says. “We are putting together a management team, and we will be announcing that very shortly,” Calamos says.

The first phase of the office, called CityGate Centre I, is about 20% leased, Harmon says. “The second floor is totally leased and we just did a new lease with Citi Smith Barney for about 12,000 sf,” she says. The asking lease rate for the seven-story building at 2135 Calamos Court, which has 213,000 sf of office space, is $19.75 per sf net, says Brian Whiting, VP of J.F. McKinney & Associates, the marketing firm. Calamos has offices at 2020 Calamos Court, and the 74,000-sf office building at 2075 Calamos Court was recently leased to Leaders Bank, Harmon says.

Construction was recently completed at the Shops at CityGate Centre, the first phase of retail for the development, which has approximately 57,000 sf, Calamos says. Smith Barney will be located on the ground floor. Also, a medical group and a restaurant are expected to lease space in the building, Calamos says.

The asking lease rate for the retail space ranges from $32 per sf to $35 per sf net for the first floor and between $19 per sf and $21 per sf net for the second floor retail space. Construction on the second phase of the retail, which will be approximately 60,000 sf, is expected to begin by the end of the year and be completed by the summer of 2009, Calamos says. The development will also have a 700-seat entertainment center, he says.