Marriott Marquis breaks ground

On Tuesday July 28, 2015 ground was broken for the new Marriott Marquis Chicago Hotel at the northeast corner of Prairie Avenue and Cermak Road.  The hotel is being built as part of the new McCormick Place Entertainment District, which will include the McCormick Place Event Center on the northwest corner.

Arne M. Sorenson

The ground breaking began with remarks from several individuals involved in the project including Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA) CEO Lori Healey, MPEA Chairman Jack Greenberg, and Arne M. Sorenson, CEO of Marriott International.

Alderman Pat Dowell

Third Ward Alderman Pat Dowell noted that “the Marriott Marquis Chicago and the McCormick Place Entertainment District represent phenomenal opportunities for the community.” 

Mayor Rahm Emanuel

Mayor Rahm Emanuel reminded attendees that just a few years ago, Chicago was quickly losing its hold on the convention business to places like Las Vegas and Florida, but in the past year, it has regained its position as the number one city for conventions in the country.  As such, a new hotel adjacent to McCormick was essential to maintain that competitive position. 

After the Mayor’s comments concluded, the assembled group of dignitaries grabbed their shovels for the ceremonial spading of dirt.  The event concluded with the Mayor pressing the red button to start up the massive drill which bored a hole into the ground for the first of many piers.

The 40-story hotel is designed by Gensler.  Prairie District3 Partners is the design/build team, which includes Clark Construction Group-Chicago, LLC, Bulley & Andrews, LLC, Old Veteran Construction, Inc., McKissack & McKissack Midwest, Inc., Goettsch Partners, Inc. and Moody Nolan, Inc. 

Containing 1,206 rooms, the hotel will be the only Marriott Marquis in the metropolitan Chicago area.  It will include specialty suites, 90,000 square feet of meeting room space (including two 25,000 square-foot ballrooms), a great room-style restaurant and bar as well as a Marketplace food court which will feature local food and retail entrepreneurs. 

An important part of the project is the incorporation and renovation of the landmarked American Book Company building at 330 E. Cermak Road.  That company had been formed in 1890 with the consolidation of four of the five largest textbook publishing houses in the United States.  In 1911, the company acquired the land at Prairie and Cermak (then 22^nd Street) for their new five-story plant.  Architect N. Max Dunning was commission to design a fireproof building which featured a prominent center tower that concealed a water tower.  

The building is finely detailed with brick laid in various decorative patterns, as well as limestone and terra cotta trim, including small “plaques” depicting open books.   The main entrance is executed in the Renaissance-Revival with a tympanum above containing a beautiful multi-color terra cotta crest for the company featuring symbols of intellectual and spiritual illumination. 

The scheduled completion date for the hotel is August 2017. 

The 2100 block of Prairie Avenue in the 1890s;

site of the new Marriott Marquis Chicago Hotel.

The Rees House and the Changing Face of Prairie Avenue

Rees house, 2110 S. Prairie Avenue

Hundreds of community residents packed into Second Presbyterian Church at 1936 S. Michigan Avenue on Monday April 14, 2014 for a meeting sponsored by the Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance.  The major topic of the evening was the new DePaul Arena to be built on the north side of Cermak Road between Prairie and Indiana avenues, along with a convention hotel and data center on the block to the east between Prairie and Calumet avenues.

The project has raised the concern of preservationists since discussions first began well over a year ago.  At the center of the concern are two landmarked structures – the Harriet Rees house at 2110 S. Prairie Avenue, and the American Book Company building at 320 E. Cermak Road.  The good news reported at the meeting was that both structures will be preserved, although the Rees house will need to be moved.

At right - new site for the Rees house;

At left - William Reid house

On April 3, the Landmarks Commission approved a plan to relocate the Rees house approximately 400 feet to the north and across Prairie Avenue to a new site at 2017 S. Prairie Avenue.  That site is immediately south of the William Reid house (2013 S. Prairie Avenue), a similarly scaled rowhouse built in 1894, and, like the Rees house, the only surviving house on its block.  The move is scheduled to take place in July.  

The William Armour house, built in 1881, originally stood at 2017 S. Prairie Avenue, and was razed about 1956 to create a parking lot.

The 2100 block of Prairie Avenue looking northwest, 1890s;

the Rees house is second from the left

The same view, April 2014

The Rees house was built in 1888 for Harriet Rees, the widow of James H. Rees, a prominent real estate man whose abstract business was one of the companies that eventually merged to form Chicago Title and Trust Company.  

The architectural firm of Cobb & Frost, which designed several homes in the neighborhood, combined smooth limestone and Sullivanesque style ornamentation with Romanesque massing and form.  The result is a stately and elegant façade, tall and narrow, that would have fit in perfectly with its stylish neighbors occupied by the Sherman, Kimball, and Rothschild families.  An interesting feature of the house was a manually operated elevator used by the aging widow to access the upper floors of the house; it remains in place to this day.

After the death of Harriet Rees, the house was purchased by Edson Keith, Jr., who had grown up in his father’s house at 1906 S. Prairie Avenue.  The Keith family resided here until 1916, when daughter Katherine married architect David Adler.  By 1920, the home had been converted to a boarding house and was later used as offices.

In the 1970s, the Prairie House Café operated out of the old mansion.  It reverted back to apartments until 2001, when it was purchased by the Martorina family and extensively restored, earning landmark designation in 2012.

The American Book Company building (frequently referred to as the ABC building) was built in 1912 at 320 E. 22nd Street (now Cermak Road), and was designated a Chicago landmark in 2008.  

Architect N. Max Dunning designed an elegant but functional building of five stories with classical terra cotta and stone trim, and an imposing tower directly over the main entrance.  The building was acquired by R. R. Donnelley and Sons in 1938, which desperately needed to expand their operations to accommodate the printing of Time and Life magazines, along with catalogs for Sears and Montgomery Ward.  A new 1,200 room Marriott Marquis is planned for the site to the west of the ABC building, and the ABC will be converted into hotel ballrooms, meeting spaces, and offices, with the first floor housing retail establishments.  

DePaul Arena, Pelli Clarke Pelli, architects