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What's Up With This Downtown Hotel's 5 Shades of Gray Wall?

 The west-facing wall at 66 E. Wacker Place represents a pixelated view of the Chicago River.
The west-facing wall at 66 E. Wacker Place represents a pixelated view of the Chicago River.
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DNAinfo/David Matthews

THE LOOP — New hotels are all the rage in Downtown Chicago, including one being built on a prominent corner in five shades of gray. 

For those wondering, the windowless, multipaneled gray wall of the Hilton Garden Inn at Wabash Avenue and Wacker Place is a product of both its surroundings and zoning minutiae. In an interview, hotel architect David Ervin of GREC Architects said the firm weighed many options, including murals and maps, but liked this idea the best: a pixelated view of the nearby Chicago River.

"We’re always striving for something that will be iconic," Ervin said. "We thought this scheme was the strongest, both for the simplicity and the extent of its meaning."

Dave Matthews says the hotel is the latest in a Downtown boom:

The 25-story, 191-room hotel at 66 E. Wacker Place is wedged between two Chicago landmarks: the modernist Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist; and the Art Deco Chicago Motor Club Building, which is also being converted to a hotel. The Hilton's five-color, multipaneled wall nods to its gray neighbors, Ervin said.

"It’s a little too simplistic to say the river is blue, the river is green, the river is olive," he said. "If it were in the blue range or green range, it would have been, frankly, more tiresome. We’ll have more legs with the gray tones."

The Hilton Garden Inn has just one window built into the wall because it lies right on the lot line, complicating window installation, Ervin said. But he stressed the hotel's layout emphasizes views to the north and south.

"Even the north side, the alley side, once you get up, you can see the river, you can see the corncob buildings," Ervin said. "It’s surprisingly cool."

People on the street had their own thoughts. 

"It's interesting, I guess," said DJ Grant, 32, of Logan Square. "It'll definitely draw some attention."

When asked if he saw the river inspiration in the wall, Grant said, "Eh, not yet."

Grace Hou, who lives in suburban La Grange Park, was frank regarding her views on Downtown architecture.

"I very rarely look up when I'm Downtown," she said. "I'm in my own world."

Expected to open in August, the Hilton Garden Inn is part of a Downtown hotel construction boom adding more than 2,200 rooms this year, the most new rooms in at least a decade, according to Crain's Chicago Business. Among the newbies: the Loews hotel in Streeterville, and the Virgin Hotel at Lake Street and Wabash Avenue. 

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