Wicker Park hotel developer lands construction loan

Developer George Nediyakalayil secured a construction loan for the 99-key hotel he’s building in Wicker Park amid a market with rising room occupancy rates.

Parkway Bank and Trust provided Nediyakalayil with $16.2 million in financing for the eight-story Hyatt Place that will rise on North and Ashland avenues. The site is a former gas station.

The city granted Nediyakalayil a full building permit in August, and documents filed with the application pegged the cost of the work at $14.5 million. The developer in May landed a permit for work on the foundation and first floor that estimated the cost of that portion at $2.2 million.

When the city granted a zoning change for the project in Spring 2017, an attorney for Nediyakalayil said it was becoming tough to operate a gas station in the hip neighborhood because so many of the young residents don’t have cars, DNAinfo reported at the time.

A spokesperson for Nediyakalayil told Block Club Chicago earlier this year he hopes to have the project done by Thanksgiving 2019. Legat Architects designed the building.

Chicago-area hotels are staying busy, even with increasing competition. The region’s room occupancy rate nudged up to 68.9 percent during the 12-month period ending in June, reversing a two-year slide, according to a Marcus & Millichap report.

In Wicker Park, developers are looking at more places outside Downtown to build hotels, including in Fulton Market with Sterling Bay’s Hyatt House and Ace Hotel projects and Shapack Partners’ Hoxton Hotel and Soho House.