The Lincolnwood Plan Commission Monday voted against supporting a proposed six-story hotel for Cicero Avenue that had sparked impassioned opposition from many residents who live in the neighborhood.
Continuing a public hearing from last month, commissioners listened to more testimony from the applicant and a few additional comments from residents before voting 6-0 to reject three special use permits and seven variations associated with the project.
“The problem with the proposal is there is a lack of a buffer between what is a transient, potentially crime-ridden, potentially adverse-to-children (building),” said Commissioner Steven Jakubowski. “It’s just too much of a risk in my view for the village to allow a project like that to come in that close to a community.”
He expressed concern that such a project would have an adverse effect on developing the larger site on the northwest corner of Touhy Avenue and Lincoln Avenue, home of the former Purple Hotel.
DML Properties LLC is looking to bring an upscale Hyatt Place hotel – with 112 guestrooms and amenities such as a business center, indoor pool, fitness center – to the 7200 block of Cicero.
“We look forward to replacing the nearly 70-year-old office building on the site with our proposal to bring the signature Hyatt Place experience to Lincolnwood,” said Minhaz Lakhani, manager of DML Properties LLC said in a company news release announcing an informational website on the project.
“Hyatt Place Lincolnwood will become a beautiful landmark appropriately situated next to the Edens Expressway for convenient guest access. We are proposing beautiful landscaping around the site perimeter to ensure this proposal will be a good neighbor while creating jobs and generating over $300,000 annually in hotel tax revenue for the village. The additional revenue for the village will support schools and vital community services without adding any school-age children to the district,” Lakhani said in the release.
But some residents have signaled they don’t want the hotel there, and even the Lincolnwood School District 74 officials expressed some concerns related to students.
For most of the commissioners at Monday’s meeting, the matter came down to a belief that the hotel as proposed is too large for the site given its proximity to residences, they said.
The property sits near residential streets Chase Avenue to the north and Jarlath Avenue to the south as well as Cicero Avenue to the east.
Akin Lakhani, also a DML Properties representative, touted the reputation of the Hyatt Place hotels and said an appraisal of the area concluded there was unmet demand for hotel space.
In response to resident concerns about the hotel and who it would draw, Akin Lakhani said, “this is not a Motel 6.”
“Hyatt Place is a select service brand that targets the high end business traveler who is looking for accommodations,” he said.
Lincolnwood Community Development Director Steve McNellis said that hotels are a use specifically noted as appropriate for this land use designation in the village’s comprehensive plan.
The applicants referred to the comprehensive plan in making their case for the project, but some commissioners said the plan is long-term and not meant to justify this dense of a project.
Akin Lakhani and his team also said traffic would not be as burdensome compared to a 34,000 square foot office building for the same site.
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DML Properties is looking for the property to be rezoned from an office district to a general business zoning district, which is necessary for the project to move forward.
Special use permits would have to be issued to allow hotel use in the district, off-street parking in the corner and side yards of the lot and a business built within 150 feet of a residentially-zoned property to operate between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m, according to village rules.
Among the multiple variations being requested is one for the height of the building, which well exceeds the 38 feet or three stories allowed.
Other variations deal with not meeting codes for off-street parking for a hotel of this size, landscaping in off-street parking areas, wall signs, the size of parking spaces and more.
“I want to know why [residents] have to have a 68-foot-high building where there is no such thing now,” Lincolnwood Plan Commission Chairman Mark Yohanna asked of DML Properties. “I want to know why they have to put up with all these different variations that you want and special uses and signage.”
Commissioner Anthony Pauletto questioned why the hotel has to have six stories.
Lakhani said the requested building height and density is standard for a Hyatt Place hotel or one of this type.
“It’s not economically feasible for them to do a three-story hotel,” Commissioner Henry Novoselsky responded. “It won’t work.”
Commissioner Suzanne Auerbach said her biggest problem with the project is the building height.
“A three-story hotel sounds great to me because it’s not an office use but it’s an evolution…I don’t mind evolution but I mind revolution, and that’s what I’m viewing this as,” she said.
Novoselsky called the project “spot zoning.”
Commissioner Don Sampen said he liked many aspects of the plan and hoped the applicant would not give up on Lincolnwood for another project.
Lincolnwood School District 74 Supt. Kimberly Nasshan sent a letter to village officials explaining that students currently cross through the property parking lot to board their school bus because of sidewalk issues in front of the building.
“The [school] district requests village intervention now to assure that a safe and clear sidewalk is maintained in front of this property,” Nasshan said in the letter.
Despite backing from the Plan Commission, the hotel proposal is expected to go before the full Village Board – which has the final word – at an upcoming meeting.
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