Investor's plans unclear for Hotel Bollero in Palatine

Months after plans fell through to convert the vacant Hotel Bollero in Palatine into a senior living center, a private investor whose portfolio includes both hotels and senior facilities has purchased the property.

Exactly what F&F Realty and President David Friedman plan to do with the highly visible building off Route 53 remains unclear, however.

The Skokie firm bought the hotel at 920 E. Northwest Highway in Palatine, Cook County records show. The purchase price was reportedly $1.68 million, a fraction of the amount owed on the property.

Friedman didn't return calls seeking comment.

Palatine Village Manager Reid Ottesen said a representative of F&F Realty contacted him to say the company acquired the hotel and will address a number of property code violations that have arisen.

“There are some structural issues, and they've cut back some of the weeds,” Ottesen said. “There's still peeling paint and we're trying to work with them on that.”

In November 2011, the village council approved a proposal to convert the 191-room Hotel Bollero, previously Hotel Indigo, into an independent senior living facility for residents 55 and over.

But the prospective owner, Tom Leontios of International Development Equity Associates in Park Ridge, never closed on the deal and the plan for 168 senior housing units never came to fruition.

Ottesen said he was told Friedman was aware of the proposed senior project and is contemplating what to do with the former hotel, which closed early last year.

According to F&F Realty's website, the company currently manages several hotels including the Holiday Inn Express in Palatine, as well as five restaurants, four apartment complexes and the Concord Place senior facility in Northlake.

A second senior facility approved in November 2011 — just a couple weeks after the Hotel Bollero project got the village council's go-ahead — also has stalled.

The former Mia's Nursery and existing structures at 894 N. Quentin Road in Palatine were to be razed to make way for a three-story building housing up to 100 beds for residents with Alzheimer's disease or forms of dementia.

That project was granted an extension, Ottesen said.