Purple Hotel Property Slated For Auction
By Chuck Sudo in News on Mar 23, 2012 6:20PM
The site of Lincolnwood's Purple Hotel—a Chicago area landmark for photographers, if nothing else—is set to go to auction in May, according to Chicago Real Estate Daily.
Originally known as the Hyatt Lincolnwood, Chicago Magazine's Whet Moser wrote last October the hotel was designed by the firm Hausner & Macsai, who greatest architectural contributions were along Lake Shore Drive. They're responsible for designing the following buildings: 21 E. Chestnut, 1400 N. State Parkway, 1100 N. Lake Shore, 1240 N. Lake Shore, and the Harbor House at 3200 N. Lake Shore, and what Moser calls the Drive's resemblance to Miami. (Only without all the pastel colors.)
The Purple Hotel has been shuttered for years, and with good reason: the once majestic hotel was known as much for its mold growth, state of disrepair and lack of upkeep as it was for its architecture and signature color, and had been the subject of auction and redevelopment for nearly as long. A U.S. bankruptcy Court judge approved of a plan to auction the property and two adjacent lots at an auction May 11 at the Westin Chicago River North Hotel. But it's uncertain whether the hotel itself will make it to the auction.
The Lincolnwood village board has an April 3 hearing where they'll discuss tearing down the building. Skokie-based North Capital Group and Weiss Properties bought the defaulted loan on the hotel last December, and want to purchase the adjacent lots so they can build a mixed-use development on the site, and are expected to reveal their plans at the meeting.
Robert Powers, who runs the excellent Chicago architecture website A Chicago Sojourn, has a detailed history of the Purple Hotel here.