Plans for hotel on north side of Elk Grove Technology Park revealed
Plans for a 4-story, 85-room hotel in Elk Grove Village that's envisioned as a venue for clients, vendors and visitors of the Elk Grove Technology Park have been unveiled.
The $10 million hotel would be situated on a 1.7-acre parcel in the northwest corner of the 85-acre tech park, which is under development in an area bounded by Higgins Road, Lively Boulevard, Oakton Street and Stanley Street.
Plans call for modern, smaller guest rooms geared toward "millennial-minded" travelers, with larger downstairs gathering spaces, meeting rooms and a fitness center.
"We hope to give them a state-of-the-art experience to make Chicagoland their home," said Bhavik Dani, president of Schaumburg-based EquityRoots Inc., which plans to close on its purchase of the hotel pad from tech park developer Brennan Investment Group by the end of the year.
The developer of the massive business hub has said a hotel was part of the plan, but it wasn't until this week that details about it were publicly released as part of the hotel group's application for a Cook County Class 7B property tax break.
EquityRoots is leading a crowdfunding effort to raise initial capital for the hotel, which would be branded with InterContinental Hotels Group's Avid hotel flag. Avid opened its first location in Oklahoma City last year, and has 50 projects in the planning stages or under construction.
EquityRoots, which opened the Wingate by Wyndham on Remington Road in Schaumburg in 2000, is trying to raise $2 million in initial equity from four dozen local investors, who will each own less than 5%. The company says securing the Cook County tax incentive - which would lower assessment levels over a dozen years - is necessary to secure financing.
In its application to county and village officials, the hotel developer said the site has challenging topographic and soil conditions - it was part of the former Busse family farm - that led to increased costs to buy the land from Brennan after soil remediation was done.
The size of the lot is also smaller than a typical 2 to 2.5 acre hotel lot, which will force EquityRoots to reduce the room count and build a more expensive vertical structure, according to the application.
Elk Grove Village's board endorsed the 7B incentive, in which commercial real estate is assessed at 10% for the first 10 years, 15% in the 11th year and 20% in the 12th year. Property would be normally assessed at 25%.
The hotel developer says the incentive - which now awaits final approval from the county - will help strengthen its debt service coverage ratio and answer its lender's concern for the lack of surrounding hotels that can be relied upon to generate general lodging demand.
After financing and permits are secured, the hotel could take up to 18 months to construct, officials say.
EquityRoots is also behind previously-announced plans to develop a Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express on Martingale Road in Schaumburg.