Dormant Staybridge Will Walk Again, as Godfrey Hotel

Early last month, we fastened ourselves to suspicions that something was up with the mummified shell of Staybridge Suites at LaSalle and Huron. A Skyscraper Page user snapped a pic of workers in action onsite. All that was known at that point was this one plain fact. No longer. An Oxford Capital Group press release (PDF), brought to our attention last night, is announcing that the 16-story "Mummy" of River North will awaken as a 221-room Godfrey Hotel Chicago. Oxford, partnering with Cube Capital, is behind the nearby Hotel Felix so would seem to know how to execute. And execution is just what this location needs. The Godfrey will inherit the Staybridge Suites design by Valerio Dewalt Train Associates, which makes sense since the form has been almost entirely released. Architect David Jennerjahn describes the building in a most self-congratulatory manner: "We conceived of the hotel's design as a taut wrapping of cubist forms that shift inward and outward to reveal the building's expressive structural frame. Both daring and honest— a real Chicago building". Forgive us, but it'll be real once we can pass through its doors. Past statements from Oxford President and CEO John W. Rutledge point to a 2013 completion.
·Godfrey Hotel Chicago Press Release [Oxford Capital]
·Staybridge Suites Back in Action [Curbed Chicago]