Chicago – Page 11 – Building The Godfrey

Our Unique Retractable Roof

You’ve likely seen the news coverage about the torrential rain, storms and tornadoes around the Illinois area. While Chicago is mostly safe, our thoughts are with those towns primarily in Central Illinois that are affected the most, including Peoria, Nashville and Washington, IL. We do find it inspiring to see how the communities came together to support and help one another.

The photo below was taken from our fourth floor space – a little wet outside from the recent rain. I|O Urban Roofscape will be approximately 15,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space, with 10,000 square feet of lounge and event space. The exciting part is the retractable roof, which you can see is being erected in the image below. This unique design makes for unobstructed views of Chicago’s skyline.

I|O offers dramatic, south-facing skyline views, which are unobstructed due to the unique design of the retractable roof.

Fortunately, all this rain doesn’t mean “rain delay” – we’re still right on schedule for a spectacular opening in February 2014.

Stay warm and dry.

What Ladies Like When They’re On The Road – Site Visit

Today, we conducted a site visit to check out the latest and greatest at the hotel. With so many changes happening, we could hardly decide where to focus. But, we reflect back on the female guests and frequent travelers who we surveyed and questioned months ago about their travel preferences.

We consistently heard three requests for amenities in the room:

Full length mirror
Luxurious bathroom products
Abundant counter space in the bathroom

We can now say: Check, check and check.

First, we learned many ladies (and likely our gentleman too) want a full length mirror in the hotel room. We certainly understand – even when you’re on the road, you still want to look stylish. Here’s a look at the full length mirror:

You're looking good! A picture of our full length mirrors. — You’re looking good! A picture of our full length mirrors.

Second, we know bathroom products matter. Guests love quality products and L’Occitane delivers nothing short of a “beauty phenomenon,” as we’ve heard others say. We previously blogged about how excited we are to offer these products in our guest bathrooms – you can view the blog post here.

Last, for the counter space, we heard many female (frequent) travelers say they preferred the extra counter space in the bathroom. The extra space allows them to set up their hair products and tools, along with their makeup bags and other needs. The extra space (shown below) allows for at least two people to easily share the space with their travel kits and make up.

Enjoy, ladies! And we know the male travelers won’t mind either. Enjoy, all!

Here’s Our Card

We hope our guests will be in their element with our new “Element” cards. Designed to bring a smile to our guests faces, these cards were developed around humor and laughter and play on the periodic table of elements. We’ll distribute them to guests throughout their stay with us. A few sample elements include:

Mt: Meetings

Li: Libations

Rs: Room Service

Fi: Fitness

Tv: TV

We hope you enjoy discovering your element with us!

Gettys Hospitality Design Shares the Blogs We Must Follow

Happy Halloween! We thought we’d share this “treat” with you – a roundup of great blogs. GETTYS, the minds behind our interior design, shared an interesting list of blogs to follow. We agreed with a number of them as great blogs to read and watch, and a few that we certainly will check out.

We appreciated GETTYS thoughts on why they follow blogs as some of the best ones give us:

Great information
Inspiration
New insight
Maybe even just a giggle to lighten your day

And of course, here is a link to GETTYS’ blog along with GETTYS Blogs You Must Follow list.

Gettys News Blog | Gettys Hospitality Design, Procurement & Branding.

Hard Hat Tour

We’re pleased to conduct our first Hard Hat tour yesterday. The tour was led by George Jordan, area general manager, and Adam Schomaker, director of sales and marketing. Our guests included hospitality and design-focused media, Chicago media, along with the astute input from our partners.

Chris McDonough from GETTYS added great insight into the design elements and inspiration. Katie Soven, of Valerio Dewalt Train Associates, shared background on the architecture. Our hotel is owned and developed by Oxford Capital.

The tour included a first-look at our lobby, guest rooms, suites and I|O Urban Roofscape. Matthew McCahill, food and beverage director, provided background on the much-anticipated I|O. It will be the largest indoor/outdoor, all-season rooftop lounge and bar in Chicago. I|O will offer two full-service bars and lounge seating at the roofscape’s two-level fire pit, which will also serve as a beacon to guests above bustling LaSalle Street. It certainly will be a must-see and must-visit in Chicago for travelers and Chicagoans alike.

Most importantly, George Jordan said he hopes the hotel “delights” the guests.