First-Ever Virgin Hotel Hits the Sales Market in Chicago’s Loop

A joint venture of Miami-based Lionstone Development and Virgin Hotels has hired the Chicago office of JLL to sell the 250-room Virgin Hotel Chicago at 203 N. Wabash Ave., reported Crain’s Chicago Business. JLL’s Adam McGaughy and John Nugent have the assignment.

Although there’s no formal asking price for the 26-story landmark property in the northeast corner of the Loop, a listing for the property notes that the ownership venture spent more than $117 million redeveloping and renovating the Old Dearborn Bank Building, which debuted as the first-ever Virgin Hotel in 2015.

JLL is playing up the downtown hotel market’s strong recovery last year and the Virgin’s location near Michigan Avenue, the Chicago Riverwalk and other major tourist hotspots, Crain’s reported. The hotel is hitting the market after a big year of recovery for downtown hotels as pandemic restrictions lifted. 

However, Crain’s noted that profitability for hotels hasn’t come back as fast. Higher costs of labor and supplies have weighed down hotel owners’ bottom lines. And business travel to Chicago remains well below where it was in 2019.

Photo courtesy of The John Buck Company.