Loyola hotel plan sparks gentrification worries for Rogers Park residents

A new hotel proposed for Rogers Park has prompted mixed reactions from residents, with some concerned the project would dramatically change the area.

The six-story, 145-room Hampton Inn at Sheridan Road and Albion Avenue is being built by a partnership between Loyola University and Chicago-based Atira Hotels.

Loyola owns the land and has sought a hotel developer for about a decade, said Tim McGuriman, Loyola’s vice president for business services.

After years of speculation, the university released drawings of the hotel last month. Atira owns several hotels in the Midwest; this one would have no restaurant or conference space, though retail space — controlled by Loyola — is part of the overall project.

The hotel has not received final approval. Ald. Joe Moore (49th) said development proposals for his ward are reviewed by a committee of neighborhood representatives. That committee, he said, was impressed with the proposal, recommending few changes.

This would be the first mid-level hotel in Rogers Park, which has only a motel now.

Some people voiced concerns about reduced parking and increased traffic during a three-hour community meeting at Loyola last month. Others said they want to make sure hotel employees are unionized

“Every time Loyola puts up a building, traffic increases exponentially,” one person said.

The meeting was held Jan. 20, the day after Loyola demolished the building that once housed Carmen’s Pizza, one of the three lots needed for the project.

The proposal also includes changing part of Albion Avenue at Sheridan Road to a two-way street to guarantee a safe entrance to the hotel. Loyola submitted traffic studies conducted in December to the Chicago Department of Transportation, and CDOT has green-lighted the change.

“We’re concerned about traffic accidents and people going the wrong way. We already have issues with the bike lane there,” said Kate Kinser, who grew up in Rogers Park and lives on Albion. “I’ve already talked to police about people speeding the wrong way on one-way streets.”

The project would not add any parking spots; the plan calls for sharing the 250-space parking lot of the Morgan, a residential and retail building a block to the south.

Atira has signed a letter of intent with Impark, operator of the parking lot, according to an email from Moore to the neighbors. The lot is open to the public and is used by residents and visitors, as well as Loyola students and staff.

Though Loyola owns the land and is behind the project, the university won’t own the hotel nor will it profit directly from its operation, McGuriman said. Instead, Loyola granted air rights above the land to Atira. Those air rights didn’t cost Atira a thing.

“The agreement was that Loyola would give the land if Atira made the first floor of the hotel retail space that the university will supervise and manage,” McGuriman said.

The university already owns retail space along Sheridan Road, and the new hotel will add close to 10,000 square feet for businesses, including fast-food chains.

Some residents, students and members of Unite Here Local 1 — a union representing hospitality and service workers — are demanding the university make sure hotel employees — it’s expected to hire about 40 — are treated fairly and have the right to organize.

But Loyola will not get involved in hiring or negotiating wages, McGuriman said.

“They won’t be our employees,” he said. “We’re not managing or operating the hotel.”

For some, this goes against Loyola’s own teachings.

Flavio Bravo, the university’s student body president, said since Loyola partnered with Atira to build the hotel, it should have a say in deciding whether hotel employees will be unionized.

Some residents agreed.

“The hotel is antithetical with Loyola’s values of social justice, preference for the poor, etc.,” Kinser said. “This is disturbing. I want a neighborhood where people care for each other.”

Moore said he has asked Atira to discuss hiring and benefits with the union.

The union has also reached out to Atira without success, according to a union representative.

Sanjeev Misra, Atira’s president, had no comment on the project.

Atira is working on a final draft of its proposal and Moore said he has not green-lighted anything. If the proposal is approved, the hotel is expected to open in late 2016.

Kinser seems sure it will happen despite local concerns. “My experience is in my lifetime living in the neighborhood that whatever Loyola wants, Loyola gets. They’re an economic engine in the neighborhood,” she said.

While some worry the hotel could threaten economic and ethnic diversity the neighborhood, Moore said it won’t change Rogers Park.

“It’s not like we’re having a Hyatt or a Four Seasons; we’re still an economically diverse community,” he said.

Tom Rosenfeld, a Rogers Park resident since 1999, doesn’t seem that worried about the area becoming too upscale.

Rosenfeld, longtime owner of the Heartland Cafe, a Rogers Park fixture at 7000 N. Glenwood Ave., said the neighborhood is almost immune to change.

“Pockets of Rogers Park have changed, but if you look at old pictures from like the ’30s, Rogers Park doesn’t look a whole lot different,” he said. “Sure, there seem to be more businesses than they were 15 years ago, Loyola has developed over in their corner, but the attractive part of Rogers Park hasn’t changed — and that is its people.”

He credits subsidized housing projects with preventing large-scale gentrification so far, even if some large swaths of land have been taken over and replaced with other projects, such as Gateway Plaza — a shopping center along Howard Street — and Loyola’s new buildings.

“The core reality is that while there is change with the times, [in Rogers Park it] is kind of a slow change,” he said, especially compared to other Chicago neighborhoods, “where you have a massive upheaval and suddenly everything is coffee shops and designer clothes stores and fancy restaurants.”