At least two more hotels to be built in Rosemont

There is another "R" word buzzing around Rosemont in these sour economic times: redevelopment.

Construction of hotels in the suburb at the edge of O'Hare International Airport is proceeding at a frenzied pace, countering any talk of recession.

With two hotels already set to open this year, village officials said Wednesday there are plans to build at least two more next year.

In a town that already has 6,000 hotel rooms, more than its 4,200 residents, the general rule for hotels is the more the merrier.

Rosemont's hotel occupancy rate now is 78 percent, village officials said. That leads the national average of 63 percent, according to the Washington, D.C.-based American Hotel & Lodging Association.

Village officials on Wednesday said Raymond Management Group, of Madison, Wis., plans to build a four-star Hilton hotel and a Hampton Inn on vacant land at River and Higgins roads. Each hotel would have 250 rooms.

Details still need to be worked out, but the village hopes work would begin in a year. The project also could include two restaurants.

If plans work out, the project would add to Rosemont's legion of hotels.

A 200-room Marriott Courtyard with two office buildings is expected to open by 2010 near a new InterContinental hotel under construction on River Road south of the Rosemont Theatre. The 556-room InterContinental is expected to open this fall.

A 254-room Aloft hotel, part of the Starwood Hotels & Resorts, is on track to open this summer at 9700 Balmoral Ave., near the theater.

Fran Bolson, president of Greater Woodfield Chicago Northwest Convention Bureau, said attendance at group meetings and conventions should hold steady despite the faltering economy. The casualty, however, is expected to be leisure travel and individual business trips.

Rosemont, which has a popular convention center, feels confident it has room for more hotels, but market saturation is of slight concern.

"We need to be cautious. The needle's between three-quarters and full right now," Acting Mayor Bradley Stephens said. "I'd rather have a higher overall rate than a lower rate with more rooms."

Hospitality experts agree that Rosemont is prime real estate for hotels with extra flights and new runways planned at O'Hare.

"If you're going to look for a place to invest in with a lot of potential, it's certainly the O'Hare area," said Gerald Bober, professor and director of the school of hospitality at Roosevelt University.

Hotel development is cyclical and new hotels popping up nationwide could have been in the works for a while, Bober said.

There certainly is no sign of development slowing down in the suburb, where some of the projects are in special taxing districts set up to encourage redevelopment.

Last year, plans for a water park resort fell through, but Stephens said there may be a new plan to put one near Balmoral Avenue and Pearl Street.

Stephens said that would complement plans for a 1,900-space parking garage for O'Hare travelers at Balmoral and Pearl.

The Parking Spot, a 10-year-old company that has 20 national locations with 35,000 stalls, would offer shuttle service to O'Hare from the garage. It's a subsidiary of the Pritzker Realty Group, led by Penny S. Pritzker.

The Pritzker family of Chicago also owns the Hyatt hotel chain, which has a major hotel next to the Rosemont Convention Center.