Chicago-based real estate developer Oxford Capital will debut a “luxury-lifestyle” brand called Hotel Julian at Chicago’s old Atlantic Bank building diagonally across from Millennium Park.
Oxford Capital, along with Quadrum Global, will redevelop the 101-year-old Michigan Avenue building into a 218-room hotel that will have a five-story glass-walled addition built atop the original structure, whose terra cotta facade will be restored.
The $75 million redevelopment will also include a ground-floor steak house called About Last Knife. The building, which was designed by noted early 20th century architects Marshall & Fox, was previously earmarked for a hotel under InterContinental Hotels Group’s Hotel Indigo brand.
Oxford Capital, which chose the name Julian as an homage to St. Julian Hospitaller, the patron saint of hospitality and travelers, has a history of redeveloping old Chicago office buildings into hotels.
Last May, it opened LondonHouse Chicago three blocks north of the Hotel Julian site. That 452-room hotel, which is part of Hilton’s Curio Collection soft brand, was rebuilt out of the old London Guarantee Building.
Oxford Capital also redeveloped the Langham Chicago out of the IBM Tower, which was built in 1973 just across the Chicago River from the London Guarantee Building and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. That 316-room hotel opened in 2013.
The Hotel Julian site is also about a block from Virgin Chicago, which Virgin Hotels redeveloped as its first-ever property from the Old Dearborn Bank building. That hotel opened in early 2015.