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Sage Opens Blackstone After $128M Restoration

CHICAGO-The 332-room Blackstone, where a few presidents have been guests, reopened this month after being closed for almost a decade.

By Gina Kenny | Updated on March 11, 2008

CHICAGO-The historic Blackstone opened this month after undergoing a several-year, $128-million restoration. The 332-room hotel at 636 S. Michigan Ave. reopened as a Marriott Renaissance Hotel. Sage Hospitality Resources, based in Denver, acquired the hotel in December 2005 from Maharishi Royal Residences LLC for $18 million, and soon after started the restoration of the building, says Sage EVP Kenneth Geist.

Several presidents have stayed at the Blackstone including Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Jimmy Carter. The hotel, which was constructed between 1908 and 1910, also is where Republican leaders brokered the presidential nomination of Warren Harding in 1920, an event which led to the expression “smoke-filled room.”

The Beaux-Arts building had been closed since 1999 after plans by Maharishi to convert the building into about 100 luxury condominiums fizzled, as previously reported by GlobeSt.com. “At the time [Sage acquired it], the South Loop was not viewed as a great hotel location,” Geist says. “We were ahead of the curve and it worked out well for us.”

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