Upon reading a recent article about Jackie Koo, the architect behind the new Wit hotel at the corner of State and Lake, it sounds like she's designed another swanky swank hotel for the South Loop. If you've ever been to the Wit you should be excited that we might be getting something similar in the South Loop.
The new hotel is called Aloft Chicago Millennium Park and is slated to open on September 1st, 2011 according to the Starwood website. The location looks to be at the corner of Wabash and Balboa which is ironic because it's not really in close proximity to Millennium Park (which is in the name of the hotel). If you're not familiar with Starwood hotels, they are the parent company of the wildly popular W hotels.
Although we're still skeptical about whether or not this hotel will happen, some of the renderings look pretty good! The best part in our opinion is that it looks like there is a rooftop lounge in the plans (which if anything like the Wits rooftop lounge would be a great addition to the neighborhood). Here is the rendering for the rooftop lounge at Aloft in the South Loop:
(Images from aloft website and koo and associates website)
This is unfortunate. The lack of "swank" is why many of us chose the south loop over other hoods.
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