Hard Rock Hotel
Chicago
This striking green and gold Art Deco tower, designed by Daniel and Hubert Burnham in 1929, originally housed the offices of the Union Carbide & Carbon company. The 75-year-old office building had difficulties competing for tenants seeking modern amenities. Seeking an alternate use for the building the owner and architect collaborated to convert the former office building into a 381-room luxury urban hotel, the first of its kind in the Hard Rock chain. A similar conversion transformed the former 1895 Reliance building into the Hotel Burnham in 1996. The Hard Rock Hotel opened on New Year’s Eve after the completion of a $100 million renovation. Tax incentives from the city, county, and federal government amounted to over $27 million. This project was applauded by the jury as “a welcome rehabilitation in the previously neglected Central Michigan Avenue corridor.”