Purple Hotel Sold, Will Be Demolished

By Margaret Lyons in News on May 7, 2008 6:15PM

Sorry, aspiring hoteliers looking for scuzzy property that gives you braincrabs if you think about it for too long: The Purple Hotel has been sold, and it's going to be demolished.

In the 60s, the Purple Hotel was trendy and cool, but it was eventually overtaken by debauchery and what the Sun-Times calls "sex parties," but what we like to just call "parties." Rezko prosecution witness Stuart Levine recently testified that he used to like to do drugs there, and he wasn't the only one; police were a regular presence at the Grimace-hued facility. The famed hotel has been closed since 2007, when a judge ordered it shut down after its owners failed to repair shoddy conditions.

The three-building, eight-acre property sold for $27 million, according to Crain's, and will probably be used for a mix of retail and housing. [Previously, previously, S-T, Crain's, photo by Chicago Outfit, "ho-tel, mo-tel" at 2:20.]