From Aldm. Reilly: Development Update on Hotel Proposal for 740 North Rush Street

42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly has issued an update on the proposed hotel development for 740 North Rush Street Project:

On April 7th, the River North Residents Association and I co-hosted a community meeting to review the development proposal. The meeting was very well attended and I am grateful to those who took time out of their busy schedules to participate.

Following the community meeting, I received a tremendous amount of constituent feedback regarding the proposal and the resounding overall sentiment was serious concern regarding the overall density of the proposal and the major traffic impacts and loading challenges associated with it.

After spending the past two months reviewing the proposal and associated traffic analyses to determine whether changes could properly address these challenges – I have concluded that the proposed 620 hotel keys, split across separate hotel flags, is simply far too ambitious for this location already surrounded by failing intersections (from a traffic engineering perspective) and high-density buildings.

I did not reach this conclusion quickly. In fact, I met with the development team on several occasions to explore potential changes or other development options to help make the proposal a better fit for this location. Unfortunately, at the end of that process, it became clear that this proposal simply could not proceed.

As a result, the proposed 620 key hotel development for 740 North Rush Street will not be moving forward. I have encouraged the property owners to carefully consider the limitations posed by the infrastructure around their site and existing traffic conditions, as they contemplate future development concepts.

I am grateful to the River North Residents Association (RNRA) and Streeterville Organization of Active Residents (SOAR) for helping me gather public input regarding this proposal and I appreciate the hundreds of neighbors who donated their time to help support our transparent public process.

 I value my partnership with downtown stakeholders and residents. I am proud of our success transforming dozens of large-scale development proposals into more compatible, contextual projects. I look forward to working with you to build upon that track record as we review future projects proposed for the 42nd Ward.

Sincerely,

Brendan Reilly

Alderman, 42nd Ward