Four Years Past its Due Date, Striking Hotel Godfrey Readies for its Debut

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Last month, Chicago Magazine's Nina Kokotas Hahn had a preview of The Five Most Anticipated Chicago Hotels of 2014.  First to debut will be the longest in gestation.  Construction on the $42 million dollar project originally named the Duke Miglin stopped in 2008, and for most of the next four years, the orphaned, uncompleted building remained wrapped in protective sheeting as the Mummy of River North.   Then in 2012, Oxford Capital announced they had acquired  the property and would be bringing it to completion as the Hotel Godfrey.

According to Hahn, The Godfrey is now set to open on February 1st as the first in a tsunami of new hotel developments destined to bring the rebounding occupancy rates of Chicago hotels back down to their previous perilous lows.

As finally realized, the vision of Valerio Dewalt Train architects looks to be a handsome addition to River North.   The curtain wall of the stacked volumes of the LaSalle Street elevation make up in drama what they lack in finesse, putting the building's innovative staggered truss framing on full display.   It'll no doubt look even more striking when lit from within.

The longer, north and side elevations offer sculpted solid facades with grids of punched-in windows.

 

 They actually resolve more cleanly than the spectacular short-end curtain wall, especially when set off against the traditional ornament trimmed masonry of Oxford's Hotel Felix, flush next door.

Read More:

Mummy No More: Valerio's Staybridge About to Escape its Wrappings

The Mummy of River North

Staggered Truss: not as Painful as it Sounds

Godfrey, My Man - You're Alive!

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When last we left The Godfrey Hotel Chicago, in March of last year, it was still enshrouded and dormant as a pupa that had been lingering in that state for almost four years, ever since the money run out and construction halted at the LaSalle and Huron site for what was originally known as the Duke Miglin hotel, to a design by Valerio DeWalt Train.

The troubled property had just been acquired by Oxford Capital Group, the folks who even now are  putting the finishing touches on The Langham Chicago, the 316-room hotel being constructed on twelve floors of the Mies van Der Rohe designed IBM Building, at 330 North Wabash, anticipating a July opening.  Last year, the 212 room Godfrey was also announced for a 2013 completion, and while their website now just says “Coming Soon”, things are definitely stirring.

With the coming of spring, the building has shed its winter coat.  The fabric sheeting that protected the innovative staggered-truss frame when the project was in mothballs has been stripped away.  According to website where you can follow the hotel's construction, it was not entirely effective. “The old construction site sat for a long time so we needed to remove all the old fire proofing on the building and apply new.”

The facade framing is in place . . .

. . .  the exterior walls continue to be affixed . . .

Spring-green Securock glass-mat insulation makes its eye-opening appearance . . .

With the exception of the still empty hole on the site of aborted Chicago Spire, the Exquisite Corpses we wrote about in 2008 have all revived as part of a 2013 construction boom that also includes a new Virgin Hotel in Rapp and Rapp's Old Dearborn Bank Building at Wabash and Lake . . .

giant Angry Bird, Virgin Hotel, 203 North Wabash

 . . . and the long-stalled Waterview skyscraper on Wacker, where work has resumed with a new name (111 West Wacker) and a soaring new crane.

111 West Wacker

Read:
Mummy No More: Valerio's Staybridge About to Escape its Wrappings
The Mummy of River North
Staggered Truss: not as Painful as it Sounds
Exquisite Corpses
Waterview has Risen from the Grave! (as 111 West Wacker)

Mummy No More? Valerio's Staybridge about to Escape its Wrappings

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We've written several times about the project at 127 West Huron, referred to variously as the Duke Miglin, or Staybridge Suites Hotel.  It's the striking building designed by Valerio Dewalt Train using innovative staggered truss framing, where the sheets never made to the guest beds but instead have covered up the project's steel frame since the money ran out almost four years ago.

Now that may finally be about to change.  We received an email yesterday from John W. Rutledge, President and CEO of the Oxford Capital Group . . .

With regard to 127 W. Huron; after acquiring the loan, Oxford has now settled various claims on the project and has recently acquired full title from the original developer and as such is in the midst of a formal remobilization. Oxford expects  to deliver an upper upscale boutique/lifestyle hotel in 2013.

 With regard to the Langham Chicago Hotel; Oxford Capital Group, LLC remains the managing partner of the local Chicago based development team executing the project.  You’ll be pleased to know this project has formally commenced construction and we expect to deliver this luxury Langham Chicago Hotel in the summer of 2013.

The Langham Chicago, of course, is the project that's currently keeping the southern part of lobby of the Mies van Der Rohe-designed 330 North Wabash (aka IBM Building) under wraps while construction of the hotel continues.

 We wrote about it last on February 20, and a few days later the Trib's Blair Kamin reported that Mies's grandson, Dirk Lohan, who is doing the lobby redesign, is promising that any changes to the ground floor will leave Mies's original vision largely intact.

So get out cameras and take your pictures of the Mummy of Huron Street while you can.  2013 isn't that far off, and by then you may be seeing something a lot closer to what the architect originally intended . . .

The Mummy of River North: Chicago has gone New Hotel Crazy (Just not at LaSalle and Huron)

Update, April of 2012: Construction is about to restart to complete the project and remove The Mummy's bandages.  Read all about it here. 

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It didn't take much.  Just a good uptick from the dismal post-crash occupancy rates, and we've got new hotels coming out of our ears.  Richard Branson is converting the Rapp & Rapp designed 203 North Wabash into a 250 room Virgin Hotel (hopefully, non-virgins will also be admitted.)  Aries Capital is looking to make the Art Deco Chicago Motor Club Building into a hotel.  As of last July, plans were still in place to make a dozen floors of Mies van der Rohe's IBM building into a Langham Hotel.  And just last week, the Sun-Times David Roeder was reporting a hotel conversion may also be in the future of the London Guarantee Building at Wacker and Michigan.  And then there's those three new River North hotels under construction with 600 rooms that we discussed yesterday.

But just a few blocks away, there it is, just as it has been since 2008, when the money ran out and construction stopped: the Staybridge Suites Hotel at 127 West Huron.  The handsome, sculpted design, by Valerio Dewalt Train, made use of innovative staggered truss framing for a lighter weight structure.  Ironically, the other advantage of staggered truss is speed of construction.

 So the steel frame went up quickly.  And then it sat there, awaiting its purpose.

After a while, the frame gets covered with protective fabric.  Over time, the fabric comes loose, and flaps in the wind.  Then it gets secured again.  Rinse and repeat.

Last year, a group led by Oxford Capital, which converted the former Hotel Wacker right next door into the Hotel Felix, and led an abortive attempt to put a hotel into the IBM before passing it on to Langham, took over the construction loan on the Staybridge.  That was last June.  That news item remains the most recent on the Oxford Capital Group website, linking to a no longer available article in Crain's.

Not much seems to be going on at the moment.  The sheeting - ghost armor - seems secure for now.  It seems like every developer has a hotel deal going.  Why is everyone spooked by Staybridge?

Pillow Fight: will River North's ghost skyscraper finally be completed?

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Crain's Chicago Business reported today that Oxford Capital, which owns the Felix Hotel right next door, has taken over the construction loan for Staybridge, the uncompleted Valerio Dewalt Train hotel at Lasalle and Huron that's been kept under wraps - literally - for over three years.  Oxford is battling for control of the property with Corporex, which bought up the general contractor's lien last year.  Virgin's Richard Branson is almost reported to be in the hunt. 

 Let's hope they all don't just cancel each other out. Chicago's hotel market is apparently heating up, increasing prospects that someone will take Staybridge to completion.  That would be good news for Valerio's striking design, but the kiss of death for the ghost skyscraper of River North.

See what Staybridge will look like when finished, and read about its innovative staggered truss frame in our piece from 2008, here.