Four Years Past its Due Date, Striking Hotel Godfrey Readies for its Debut

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Last month, Chicago Magazine's Nina Kokotas Hahn had a preview of The Five Most Anticipated Chicago Hotels of 2014.  First to debut will be the longest in gestation.  Construction on the $42 million dollar project originally named the Duke Miglin stopped in 2008, and for most of the next four years, the orphaned, uncompleted building remained wrapped in protective sheeting as the Mummy of River North.   Then in 2012, Oxford Capital announced they had acquired  the property and would be bringing it to completion as the Hotel Godfrey.

According to Hahn, The Godfrey is now set to open on February 1st as the first in a tsunami of new hotel developments destined to bring the rebounding occupancy rates of Chicago hotels back down to their previous perilous lows.

As finally realized, the vision of Valerio Dewalt Train architects looks to be a handsome addition to River North.   The curtain wall of the stacked volumes of the LaSalle Street elevation make up in drama what they lack in finesse, putting the building's innovative staggered truss framing on full display.   It'll no doubt look even more striking when lit from within.

The longer, north and side elevations offer sculpted solid facades with grids of punched-in windows.

 

 They actually resolve more cleanly than the spectacular short-end curtain wall, especially when set off against the traditional ornament trimmed masonry of Oxford's Hotel Felix, flush next door.

Read More:

Mummy No More: Valerio's Staybridge About to Escape its Wrappings

The Mummy of River North

Staggered Truss: not as Painful as it Sounds

Godfrey, My Man - You're Alive!

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When last we left The Godfrey Hotel Chicago, in March of last year, it was still enshrouded and dormant as a pupa that had been lingering in that state for almost four years, ever since the money run out and construction halted at the LaSalle and Huron site for what was originally known as the Duke Miglin hotel, to a design by Valerio DeWalt Train.

The troubled property had just been acquired by Oxford Capital Group, the folks who even now are  putting the finishing touches on The Langham Chicago, the 316-room hotel being constructed on twelve floors of the Mies van Der Rohe designed IBM Building, at 330 North Wabash, anticipating a July opening.  Last year, the 212 room Godfrey was also announced for a 2013 completion, and while their website now just says �Coming Soon�, things are definitely stirring.

With the coming of spring, the building has shed its winter coat.  The fabric sheeting that protected the innovative staggered-truss frame when the project was in mothballs has been stripped away.  According to website where you can follow the hotel's construction, it was not entirely effective. �The old construction site sat for a long time so we needed to remove all the old fire proofing on the building and apply new.�

The facade framing is in place . . .

. . .  the exterior walls continue to be affixed . . .

Spring-green Securock glass-mat insulation makes its eye-opening appearance . . .

With the exception of the still empty hole on the site of aborted Chicago Spire, the Exquisite Corpses we wrote about in 2008 have all revived as part of a 2013 construction boom that also includes a new Virgin Hotel in Rapp and Rapp's Old Dearborn Bank Building at Wabash and Lake . . .

giant Angry Bird, Virgin Hotel, 203 North Wabash

 . . . and the long-stalled Waterview skyscraper on Wacker, where work has resumed with a new name (111 West Wacker) and a soaring new crane.

111 West Wacker

Read:
Mummy No More: Valerio's Staybridge About to Escape its Wrappings
The Mummy of River North
Staggered Truss: not as Painful as it Sounds
Exquisite Corpses
Waterview has Risen from the Grave! (as 111 West Wacker)