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Virgin Hotel Looks to Lure Locals, Preps to Open After Months-Long Tease

By Andy Roesgen | November 28, 2014 5:58am
 Richard Branson's first Chicago-based Virgin Hotel is set to open on Wabash Avenue in January.
Virgin Hotel Preview
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THE LOOP — A virtually deserted landmark building in the Loop, for years home only to the homeless who huddled in its recessed doorway, is about to roar back to life as the nation's first Virgin Hotel.

And its CEO is lifting the lid on the allure for locals.

The 250-room hotel opens for its first guests on Jan. 15 in the Old Dearborn Bank building at 203 N. Wabash Ave., next to the elevated tracks at the corner of Lake Street.

Virgin Hotels CEO Raul Leal said in 2010 that Chicago was one of six major cities under consideration for the company's first U.S. hotel.

"We said, 'Wherever we find the right building in one of these cities, we'll do it,'" he said. "I fell in love with [the Old Dearborn Bank Building] almost immediately."

 Virgin CEO Richard Branson models the hotel's signature bed design.
Virgin CEO Richard Branson models the hotel's signature bed design.
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Courtesy Virgin Hotels

The long-delayed project is opening about a year later than originally planned. Leal said it was tough to reconfigure the building from an office to a hotel, and dealing with a landmark-designated building was a red-tape hassle.

But he said it was worth it.

Behind a second-floor false ceiling at the top of a grand staircase, workers found the original 1920s ceiling tiles, which Leal said were "painstakingly restored to their original glamor" over the course of 10 months.

Art deco aside, Leal is promising a thoroughly modern, tech-heavy hotel, with rooms geared toward female travelers — "like you're walking into a very nice dressing room" — and sliding doors in the middle of every room, providing two separate rooms.

And Leal said an ergonomic bed that Virgin has trademarked is like a "play pen," allowing a family to sit on all sides of the bed, and, say, play with their mobile devices.

But after a recent stealth ad campaign that included placemat ads dropped on the door steps of Virgin competitors such as the Hard Rock Hotel and the Wit, Leal is also now trumpeting the hotel's appeal to locals.

Among the highlights: a coffee bar during the day that transforms into a wine bar at night; an underground spa that Leal said locals will find to be "quite a mysterious little area;" a second-floor "Commons Club" containing food and drinks where locals can "curl up and read a book, or have a party;" a roof-top lounge, "Stella's," with DJ-inspired music; and a second rooftop venue with live music.

On the street-level will be "Miss Ricky's," a 23-hour diner whose name is a cheeky reference to Virgin founder Richard Branson's habit of dressing in drag for various charity events.

And another reason for locals to be enthusiastic: The hotel is still looking for 250 to 300 employees.

But if the hotel's design-inspired, music-centric theme sounds like a direct challenge to the ultra-hip Hard Rock, also in an art deco stunner just a block away, Leal said it's not intentional.

"We hope to bridge the gap between 'lifestyle' hotels" like The Hard Rock and the W "and the existing legacy hotels, such as the Hiltons and Marriotts ... we hope to be the hotel in the middle that offers a little bit of both."

And with five other hotels, either completed or soon-to-be completed, all sandwiched within 1½ blocks of the Virgin, Leal said he's not about to give away all its secrets just yet.

"We've still got some surprises for locals," he said.

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