Elite Tennis Coach Serves up Hotel Plan in Chicago’s Hyde Park

A South Side development team is looking to bring a hotel to Washington Park, a move that could help fill the hospitality gap west of Hyde Park and the University of Chicago.

Center Court Development, led by Kamau Murray of the XS Tennis & Education Foundation, is planning a two-building, mixed-use project at 5301 South State Street, Urbanize Chicago reported.

The proposed development, dubbed XS Tennis Residences + Hotel, would rise on a vacant lot across from the 13-acre XS Tennis complex at the southeast corner of East 53rd Street and South State Street, which Murray’s firm built in 2018 with $2.9 million in support from the city.

Murray, a tennis coach and tournament promoter who coached Sloane Stephens to the U.S. Open title in 2017, was a full-time pharmaceuticals salesman for Novo Nordisk before founding XS Tennis.

Designed by Seek Design + Architecture, the proposal includes a six-story hotel with 125 rooms and a five-story residential building with 51 apartments. The project would also include 72 surface parking spaces and a shared driveway between the two buildings.

The hotel, planned at the northern end of the site along 53rd Street, would rise 70 feet and include ground-floor amenities like a lobby, multipurpose room, laundry, fitness center and pool. A 2,040-square-foot retail space would anchor the corner of 53rd and State.

The five-story residential building to the south would rise 60 feet and include a mix of 28 one-bedrooms and 23 two-bedrooms. Ten units would be designated as affordable. Ground-floor amenities would include a lobby, bike storage, café and four indoor pickleball courts, an increasingly popular feature in multifamily developments.

The developers are seeking to rezone the site from light manufacturing to community shopping district with a Planned Development designation to accommodate the project’s height and uses. The proposal will require approval from the Chicago Plan Commission, Committee on Zoning and City Council.

If approved, the project would deliver one of the only hotel developments in the immediate area, a notable shift for the State Street corridor just south of Bronzeville and west of Hyde Park, which has long been dominated by civic, residential and industrial uses.

— Judah Duke