CHICAGO — The $421.5 million project to build a 1,200-room "headquarters hotel" at McCormick Place will be funded in part by $55 million in Tax Increment Financing (TIF), City Council voted Wednesday.
The hotel "will fill a long-standing need by conventioneers and other visitors," Andrew Mooney, commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development, which administers Chicago's TIF program, said in a release issued by the mayor's office.
The hotel will be located on the south side of Cermak Road between Indiana and Michigan avenues. The American Book Company building, a landmark-designated building at the corner of Cermak Road and Calumet Avenue, will be "incorporated into the hotel complex," according to the release.
The mayor's office said the TIF assistance will partly reimburse the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA), also known as McPier, for the cost of acquiring the site and for certain construction expenses that are TIF-eligible.
The remaining $396.5 million for the project will come from McPier revenue bonds. McPier estimates that the hotel will generate more than $66 million in lodging fees and $11 million in hotel taxes annually, according to a news release.
Mooney's statement also lauded the 3,700 temporary construction jobs and 600 permanent jobs that developers anticipate the project will generate.
A skybridge will connect the hotel directly across Indiana Avenue to McCormick Place's west building. The hotel will be served by a new Green Line stop planned for Cermak near the convention center, Emanuel said.
McPier owns and operates McCormick Place and Navy Pier.
