by Brianna Crandall — February 27, 2013—Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA) and Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, announced on February 19 the construction of a 1,200-room “headquarters hotel” near McCormick Place, currently the largest convention center in North America, to accommodate convention and trade show business visitors. The hotel is expected to facilitate a vibrant, authentic and walkable urban experience and to put distance between Chicago and its major convention and trade show competitors while boosting economic growth with nearly 2,500 construction jobs and 500 permanent, local jobs in the “South Loop” area.
The new headquarters hotel will be located between Indiana and Michigan Avenues, along the south side of Cermak Road, and will have a Michigan Avenue address. A skybridge will connect the hotel to the West Building of McCormick Place. The hotel will allow McCormick Place to add approximately 15 new mid-market events per year, generating roughly 80,000 attendees. The hotel will cooperate with the existing Hyatt Regency McCormick Place Hotel to jointly host large group events. The number of hotel rooms in walking distance from the convention center will increase by approximately 50 percent.
Upon completion, the hotel will allow convention visitors to use this single property as their headquarters throughout their visit to Chicago. Additionally, the new hotel will host onsite function space to handle large food and beverage operations as well as large meetings and general sessions. It is expected to increase access and draw visitors between McCormick Place and the South Loop, Chicago metro regions and across the Midwest. The hotel will also benefit from the construction of a newly announced Green Line station at McCormick Place.
The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority is acquiring a new site to build the hotel at an estimated cost of $400 million. MPEA will utilize revenue-based financing during the construction phase and will later seek to add the financing of this property, along with its other facilities, into its expansion project debt structure. This will then allow for the additional income generated by the second hotel property to be used to aggressively grow the conventions and meetings business in Chicago.
MPEA owns McCormick Place and the adjacent Hyatt Regency Hotel. The convention center’s North, South and West Buildings as well as the Lakeside Center offer 2.6 million sq. ft. of exhibition space. Located along Chicago’s lakefront, McCormick Place offers 173 meeting rooms (600,000 sq. ft.), the 4,249-seat Arie Crown Theater and three smaller ones, and six ballrooms, including one of the largest in the world. The site offers easy access to 5,800 parking spaces, and a series of pedestrian promenades and sky bridges link the entire campus, providing locations for retail shops, cafes, restaurants and other visitor amenities.
