$25M Restaurant, Hotel Added to Outlet Center

ROCKFORD, IL-A restaurant and guitar museum being developed by Rick Nielsen, from the band Cheap Trick, and a Hyatt Place will be neighbors to the Preferred Outlets at Rockford at the southwest corner of Riverside Boulevard and Interstate 90. Nielsen and Brent Johnson, owner of Rockford-based Ringland-Johnson Construction, are developing the $25-million restaurant and hotel project at the same site of the $90-million Preferred Outlets at Rockford retail center, which is being developed by a joint venture of Land Capital Group Inc., based in Park City, UT, and Ariel Preferred Retail Group LLC, headquartered in Williamsburg, VA.

The 80,000-sf hotel will have 127 rooms, Johnson says. Rick’s will be a 20,000-sf facility with a restaurant, guitar museum, banquet facilities for up to 250 people and a performance venue. Nielsen “is a passionate musician and guitar collector,” Johnson says. This will be the third restaurant for Nielsen, who also owns Piece Brewery & Pizzeria in Chicago, and The Stockholm Inn, here.

Nielsen, who grew up and lives in Rockford, says performers will range from his own band and other major bands to local ones. The guitar museum is expected to have a rotating selection of more than 400 guitars. Guitars Nielsen has played will be displayed in addition to ones from John Lennon, Lenny Kravitz, John Mayer and others. Pieces from Nielsen’s collection have been displayed at various exhibition venues, including the Boston Museum of Fine Art and the Henry Ford Museum, among others.