Hotel, Condo Building Planned for Downtown Chicago

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By TOM DAYKIN

A Florida-based hotel developer is proposing a nine-story building with 120 extended-stay hotel rooms and 18 residential condominiums in downtown Milwaukee's largest night life area.

The $20 million development, which would include 10,000 square feet of street-level restaurant and retail space and one level of underground parking, is planned for the southeast corner of N. Water St. and E. Juneau Ave. The site, now a parking lot, is just north of the former Brew City Bar-B-Q building, 1114 N. Water St., which is being converted into a Bar Louie restaurant and tavern.

The project is being proposed by Development Opportunity Corp. of Fort Myers, Fla.

"We feel there is a demand for additional extended-stay rooms," said Phil Hugh, president of Development Opportunity and its affiliated hotel management firm, DOC Hospitality.

The hotel's rooms would be marketed to people staying in Milwaukee during corporate training assignments, those needing a place to stay while relocating to the Milwaukee area, and vacationers looking for larger rooms, Hugh said. All the rooms will be suites, with stoves, microwaves and refrigerators, he said.

The hotel might use the Staybridge Suites brand, Hugh said. That brand is owned by Intercontinental Hotels Group, which also owns Holiday Inn, Hotel Indigo, Candlewood Suites and other brands.

Development Opportunity is discussing financing options with various lenders, Hugh said. He hopes to begin construction by October and complete the project by January 2008.

Hugh's firm is working on the project with a local investors group, Market Street Partners II LLP, which owns lots at 1124 N. Water St. and 223 E. Juneau Ave.

Market Street wants to buy adjacent lots, totaling about 9,200 square feet, from the city's Redevelopment Authority to create a 30,200-square-foot development parcel. The authority will review that $443,340 purchase offer at its Thursday meeting, said Andrea Rowe Richards, spokeswoman for the Department of City Development.

Hugh is a former senior vice president at New York-based Cendant Corp., which owns several hotel brands, including Ramada, Howard Johnson and Super 8.

Development Opportunity, which Hugh started nearly three years ago, is renovating a 123-room hotel in Fort Myers, which is scheduled to reopen in August as a Holiday Inn. Development Opportunity also is developing a 62-room Hotel Indigo in Fort Myers, a 24-room boutique hotel in Pittsburgh and an 86-room Candlewood Suites in the Pittsburgh area.

The Staybridge Suites plan is the latest of several downtown hotel proposals that have surfaced recently as business travel has increased.

Others include developer Doug Weas' plans for a 150-room Renaissance ClubSport by Marriott, part of an 18-story mixed use project, at the southeast corner of N. Broadway and E. St. Paul Ave., in the Historic Third Ward.

Also, Chicago developer Richard Curto wants to build a 125-room boutique hotel and a 140-room hotel catering to business travelers as part of his mixed-use developments east of N. Water St. and north of E. Ogden Ave., in the Park East area.