News
330 N. Wabash Goes Global
January 26, 2011
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| Mies Van der Rohe may be a local legend, but his last building, 330 N. Wabash, has drawn global attention from Hong Kong-based investor Great Eagle Holdings, parent of luxury hotel brand and operator Langham Hotels International. Oxford Capital Group (a local development team that includes the principals of interior design firm Gettys) is working with the two international companies to redevelop the office towers second through 13th floors into 320 guest rooms. Oxford has traditionally sponsored complicated hotel redevelopment and adaptive reuse projects nationally such as theWyndham Chicago Hotel developed in the first 17 floors of the 633 North St. Clair office building, and the LEED certified Hotel Felix in River North, which it converted from an SRO. Oxford Capital Group's CEO John Rutledge says Chicago is garnering increasing interest from overseas investors because of its strategic significance as one of the top three cities in the US, its relatively low real estate prices, and a diversified economy, including its growing tourist attractions. | |
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| Oxford's original capital partner was REIT LaSalle Hotel Properties, but at the start of 2010, it asked Rutledge and his local team to find a replacement investor, which culminated in the Great Eagle/ Langham transaction at the end of last year. Great Eagle/Langham is expected to invest more than $150M, bringing its fusion of Asian and European luxury to Chicago. The new hotel is expected to use a modified version of the working drawings that Gettys and Goettsch Partners had already completed for the original team. Construction will begin once the revision to the drawings is finished and the hotel is slated to open in the end of 2012 or beginning of 2013. |
