Reinventing Hyatt Place in downtown Chicago

Hyatt Place Chicago (The Loop on Franklin)

Designing a high-rise hotel in downtown Chicago would have been a challenge in itself, but redefining a hotel in a tight and dense urban site was quite another. The Hyatt Place brand—previously associated with suburban, low-rise structures—desired to expand into the urban market place and required a different design approach to do it.

Hyatt needed a team to transform its brand to fit a downtown, high-rise building, so we were brought on to implement modern design styles, work within the tight space requirements, and establish a proud and profitable urban prototype for Hyatt Place.

We worked to customize programming and employ creative value-engineering tactics that would achieve an elevated aesthetic for the brand’s first foray into the urban marketplace. The building’s exterior is comprised of a blue monolithic window wall—the ‘gem’ facing Franklin Street. Inside, the hotel features 206 guest rooms, a ground floor lobby, a 103-seat Hyatt-branded restaurant, 3,000 square feet of meeting space, a 3-lane lap pool, and a fitness area.

Totaling 300,000 square feet, Hyatt Place is targeted for LEED Silver standards and serves as a showcase building for Hyatt, whose world headquarters sits just a few blocks away.