advertisement

New hotel could be coming to Naperville near Route 59 and I-88

A Tru by Hilton proposed for Naperville could be the first hotel built in the city without full banquet facilities since 2002 and the first new lodging option since Hotel Indigo at the Water Street District opened in late 2016.

The city council could approve plans for the hotel during its meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the municipal center at 400 S. Eagle St.

Design-builder and general contractor M Cube Global Inc. is seeking permission to build the 121-room hotel at 1809 W. Diehl Road. The four-story building meets city specifications for its size, sidewalks, landscaping and open space and is in the process of seeking a stormwater permit from DuPage County, developer Amarish Patel said.

Tru by Hilton is a mid-tier brand meant for nightly stays, Patel said, and something the Hilton chain believes would fare well at the 3.4-acre property near the interchange of Route 59 and I-88.

M Cube Global, a Rolling Meadows-based firm that specializes in construction of hotels and apartment or condo buildings, aims to start infrastructure work on the site this fall, then begin construction of the building in the spring, Patel said.

The hotel would be the 20th in Naperville and would add to the city's total of roughly 2,400 hotel rooms, said Christine Jeffries, president of the Naperville Development Partnership, which runs the Naperville Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"With that many rooms to fill 365 nights of the year, it's a really robust industry in Naperville," Jeffries said.

The hospitality industry in the state's fourth-largest city is "holding our own," Jeffries said, with daily occupancy rates of more than 60% and average daily room rates of roughly $105.

The city and the development partnership put regulations in place after the 1990s that basically put a moratorium on limited-service or extended-stay hotels without banquet facilities, Jeffries said.

But the Diehl Road site on which Tru by Hilton plans to open is zoned appropriately for a hotel without a banquet center, she said, and the facility could be the first hotel of its type to open in Naperville in the better part of two decades.

Previous hotel development in the city included a $40 million renovation of the former Holiday Inn-Select to become the Marriott Chicago Naperville as well as construction of Hotel Arista and Embassy Suites, all near the I-88 corridor. Then, in 2016, the city got a boutique hotel with a banquet center in its downtown when Hotel Indigo opened at the Water Street District.

"Now we have these full-service hotels with banquet space and meeting capabilities. Those are demand generators," Jeffries said. "Those types of hotels with banquet facilities will bring groups in that can then feed the marketplace."

The Naperville Convention and Visitors Bureau works with its counterpart in Aurora to recruit sporting events to host their functions and book their guests at hotels in the two cities, Jeffries said, and it's helpful for these efforts that the cities offer a wide range of hotel types. The Naperville group also focuses its recruitment on business groups and wedding parties to fill its various hotel rooms.

If approved, the new Tru by Hilton would be owned by ZJ Chase Investment Group of St. Charles.

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.