The upcoming LondonHouse Chicago at Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive has recently hit a pretty significant construction milestone, as the building's new glassy addition has filled the void that once separated the historic London Guarantee & Accident Building and the Mather Tower on Wacker Drive. Designed by Chicago's Goettsch Partners, the new addition will act as the hotel's main entrance and will be composed mostly of hotel rooms. The project, which includes the Alfred S. Alschuler-designed London Guarantee Building originally completed in 1923 and the new Goettsch-designed addition will feature a total of 452 guest rooms and 21,000 square feet of retail space between the first and second floors. In addition, the new hotel will have a few other notable amenity spaces and venues, including a rooftop terrace that will incorporate the building's ornamental cupola. While there have been a slew of adaptive reuse projects over the last few years that transformed office buildings into hotels, the LondonHouse is likely to become one of the city's premier event spaces once completed and opened next spring.
In addition to pushing forward with construction, the upcoming hotel has launched a website along with some renderings that depict the hotel's shared spaces and guest rooms. The renders offer an early look at how the hotel's lobby bar, grand ballroom, the 21st floor bar and lounge and the rooftop terrace will look when completed. During a tour of the under-construction project with Len Koroski of Goettsch Partners, the architect suggested that the rooftop terrace with its cupola will become a popular wedding venue. If the huge success of the recently opened Chicago Athletic Club Association Hotel indicates anything, it's that these historic building conversions have become just as — if not more — recognized for their restaurants and event spaces than the hotel component.
·LondonHouse Chicago [Official website]
·Inside the Upcoming LondonHouse Hotel in the Historic London Guarantee Building [Curbed Chicago]
·Glassy Addition Underway at the London Guarantee Building [Curbed Chicago]
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