DuPage County's largest hotel center opens
Now Dutchie Caray has a new place to stay in DuPage County.
And holy cow! It's huge.
Caray, wife of the late Hall of Fame baseball announcer Harry Caray, Wednesday was the first person to check into the newly opened Westin Lombard Yorktown Center.
With 39,000 square feet for conventions and meetings and 500 guest rooms, the 18-story complex is the county's largest hotel.
Caray checked in at one of the lobby's four mini-kiosks that stand before lit painted murals of lilacs, a nod to Lombard, the Lilac Village.
Meanwhile, the dedication of the 19,000-square-foot William J. Mueller ballroom acknowledges the role village president Mueller played in bringing the project to Lombard.
The village helped fund $184 million for the project through tax-exempt bonds.
The project also required the partnership of Bob Long, who through Long/Pehrson Associates owns Yorktown Center -- the site of the new hotel.
As the American, village, hotel flags were hoisted in front of the Westin's entrance, Long said, "I feel tremendously fortunate to be part of this project."
Standing next to Mueller in the shadow of the hotel, Long said that at one point as the project moved from concept to construction, "We went off of our contract. And millions were being spent.
"And it never made a difference," Long said. "This is the essence of a partnership. (Mueller) trusts me. I trust him. And this hotel is the latest result."
A big part of the hotel's success, Long said, will be its restaurants: Harry Caray's Italian Steakhouse and Holy Mackerel! American Fish House.
Caray said she plans to celebrate her birthday, which was Wednesday, at the new hotel and restaurant.
Since 1990, there had been interest in building a Harry Caray's in Lombard, said Grant DePorter, president of the Harry Caray's Restaurant Group.
"The renaissance of the Yorktown area is what got us thinking we should come to Lombard," DePorter said.
Of course, in business as well as professional baseball, timing can be everything.
"At the start of the year, we told (Chicago Cubs President) John (McDonough) that we were opening a new restaurant and we needed the Cubs to win," DePorter joked.
Still, having the Cubs in the playoff race, DePorter said, will be good for the new restaurants, which add to "The new restaurant row of the suburbs," said Skip Strittmatter, president of the DuPage Convention and Visitors Bureau.
More importantly, Strittmatter said, the size of the hotel's meeting spaces will "change the game" when it comes to convincing large groups to come to DuPage.
"A lot of groups want to hold their events under one roof," Strittmatter said. "Now, we can go after a different type of group we were unable to market to in the past."