CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Navy Pier remains closed to visitors due to the coronavirus pandemic, but a new luxury hotel opened there Thursday.
Sable at Navy Pier is the first hotel to break ground on Chicago’s iconic Lake Michigan, offering 223 rooms to guests.
“The hotel was actually finished with construction in November,” said Bob Habeeb, CEO of Maverick Hotels and Restaurants. “We chose not to open at that time, and decided this was probably better timing and it appears that was a good call.”
The hotel’s grand opening comes the same day Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker announced a “Bridge Phase” that will serve as a transition period to ‘Restore Illinois’ with higher capacity limits as well as increased business operations.
“I think we’ll be pleasantly surprised by what happens through the summer months once these restrictions are lifted,” Habeeb said. “The leisure guests, the individual travelers will be very quick to come back to the market. The corporate traveler is a little bit more of a question mark.”
Michael Jacobson, President and CEO of the Illinois Hotel and Lodging Industry, said business travelers and group travelers make up about half of Chicago hotel’s revenue.
“What we really need back in terms of profitability is that business and group travelers. We don’t anticipate us getting back to our full pre-pandemic revenue levels until 2024 at the earliest,” he said.
Photo credit Sable at Navy Pier
Still, Thursday’s announcement from Governor Pritzker shines a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel for those in the hospitality industry.
“With today’s announcement, hotels are going to begin reopening, rehiring their staff and they can start getting some cash flow back in the door just to be able to hang on and survive,” Jacobson said. “If we didn’t see an announcement like what we saw here today, our fear was that the pace of foreclosure was going to continue to increase.”