The 353-room hotel is owned by LaSalle Hotel Properties, which purchased the hotel last year for $114.5 million. The hotel is managed by Gemstone Resorts International LLC, based in Park City, UT. MCCARTAN, based in New York, is the designer for the renovations. "We are taking the property pretty upscale, a little bit away from kind of the bluesy theme, and be something a little bit more modern with Moroccan and French overtones," says Mark van Hartesvelt, principal with Gemstone.

The exterior work is mostly complete and work has begun on the interior of the hotel. The hotel's rooms and corridors are being renovated, in addition to expanding the lobby and bar areas, van Hartesvelt says. The hotel will also add 10,000 sf of meeting, ballroom and function space. "On the fourth floor, there is some space that used to be a bowling alley and the bowling alley has shrunk in size due to demand," van Hartesvelt says. "We are taking the old portion that used to be bowling and billiards and turning it into meeting space." The renovations on the meeting space are expected to be complete by Oct. 1.

Although the name of the hotel will change from House of Blues Hotel to Hotel Sax Chicago, the hotel is not severing its relationship with the House of Blues, van Hartesvelt tells GlobeSt.com. "We are not breaking from the House of Blues locally. We are breaking from the name as part of our repositioning effort but we are still very, very close to the House of Blues locally," he says.