Roselle hotel gets new name

A Roselle hotel has been rebranded as a Holiday Inn Express as part of the revitalization of the property that includes completing an unfinished banquet center.

The re-grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the 101-room hotel was held Thursday at 1490 W. Lake St.

Then, on Friday, the village and hotel owner Pearlshire Capital Group issued a written statement saying the rebranding is the first phase of a revitalization effort for the site.

The next step will be to finish the banquet facility on the south end of the property.

While the outside of the roughly 24,000-square-foot facility was built along with the hotel in 2008, the interior wasn't completed because of a lack of funding.

"We always imagined from the start that we would have both (the hotel and the banquet center)," said Patrick Watkins, Roselle's community development director.

Watkins said Pearlshire Capital Group worked with the village to develop a plan to finish the facility.

In response to a request from Pearlshire, Roselle village board members earlier this spring approved the establishment of a business district on the property.

The business district allows the hotel owner to self-impose an added sales tax, up to 1 percent, to be used to finance the interior construction of the banquet facility, officials said.

Work on the estimated $4 million project is expected to start in two weeks, according to Watkins. Plans call for the facility to be open and ready to accept reservations by early 2015, officials said.