Business & Tech

It's Official: Purple Hotel Will Be Demolished

Plans to rehab the Purple Hotel in Lincolnwood are no more.

Lincolnwood Mayor Jerry Turry told Patch there was once a point when residents asked him how they could obtain a brick from the iconic Purple Hotel. At the time, speculation spread throughout the community that the site would be demolished. Those rumors would later be dismissed, however, after Skokie based developer North Capital, LLC purchased the site with plans to redevelop and rehab the structure.

Now, those residents may get their wish. The Purple Hotel is going to be demolished, according to Chicago Real Estate Daily.

Related: Take a Tour Inside the Purple Hotel (PHOTOS)

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The sale of Lincolnwood's Purple Hotel was confirmed in late May by The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The site was purchased by Jake Weiss, founder of North Capital, for $8.3 million.

Weiss originally planned to turn the site into a mixed commercial development, featuring hotel rooms, banquet space and retail stores. That's all still in play, but the original structure will no longer be.

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“There have been a number of projects that we have gone very far down the road with that for one reason or another did not come to fruition,” Weiss told Patch. “You invest your heart, soul and money into a year to year and a half into a project and then it doesn’t happen, that does drain you.”

Hotel's history -

Perhaps the most recognizable building in Lincolnwood is also the village's biggest headache.

The infamous Purple Hotel can be remembered for a variety of historical events.

There's the unsolved murder of convicted mobster Allen Dorfman, who was gunned down in the hotel's parking lot in 1983.

Almost two decades later, Stuart Levine testified to the drug-fueled parties in the corruption trials of Tony Rezko and William Cellini. Levine told reporters that he snorted "10 lines of a potent mix of drugs" during a single sitting while at the hotel.

Despite all the high-profile history, the Purple Hotel also had its bright side.

Michael Jordan announced himself as a rookie Chicago Bull at the historic hotel in the 1980s. Speak to any longtime North Shore residents and they'll tell you the Purple Hotel was the place to be seen and heard. 

The building at 4500 Touhy Ave. was built in 1953, and was originally called the Lincolnwood Hyatt House. Since then its changed hands a variety of times, becoming a Radisson and even a Ramada.

But everyone knew it as the Purple Hotel.

Extravagant weddings and fancy dinner parties were nothing unusual. The hotel even featured live music for its patrons as they dined in the Great Lakes Ballroom.

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Pictures: Take a Tour Inside the Infamous Purple Hotel

Read our previous coverage 


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