Thanks to the intrepid investigating of Kal B, he pointed me to some initial renderings & the address of what is supposed to be the Chicago Edition, located at 150 East Ontario. This building has been in development for some time, and I think its only recently that it was decided to be branded as an Edition.

The Chicago Edition is being developed by Monaco Development, which primarily does residential projects, in fact this Edition is supposed to have a residential component – approximately 30 high end residences, in addition to the 250 hotel rooms and some street level retail space on the bottom of the building. The 51-story building is supposed to begin construction later this year with an opening scheduled for 2011, making the Chicago Edition one of the initial Editions to open.

There are no renderings of the interior of the hotel, yet, and I don’t expect to see them for awhile still, so for the time being we will have to make do with outside renderings. All in all, it looks like a typical modern office building – rather than a hotel or residential building, but the nice touches can be seen on the top floors where there seems to be balconies, and then toward the base of the building it look as though there is outdoor dining area.

Currently the site contains a few restaurants – well known ones that the locals do not want to see demolished, and the 50 story building that is going to replace it is not being looked forward to by the locals, but I think once the hotel comes in and opens they will enjoy its presence and the additional foot traffic it brings to the area.

I’m more curious to see what the interiors of these hotels look like, Schrager & Marriott are claiming that these hotels will be uniquely Schrager, and will stand apart from any of the current competition that exists today – if Schrager’s previous projects are any indication, I think we’ll all be very impressed with Edition.

andrew@alconic-inc.com