Big Inn Endorsed to Wilmette Council

Though reservations have yet to be taken for a proposed six-story Marriott Inn at 3201 Old Glenview Rd. in Wilmette, the Plan Commission voted 4-3 to send the project for village board approval.

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At that point on Sept. 27, board members will vote to accept at a later date the final plans for the hotel, which could see construction start as early as May and a ribbon-cutting ceremony as early as June 2013.

Upon completion, the residential inn will take up 91,055 square feet of space and give guests the choice a studio, a single bed or a dual bed room.

Plan Commission Charmain Borys Later along with commissioners Michael Bailey and Gary Kohn voted against the recommendation after they heard complaints from several outraged residents during the public comment portion of the meeting.

“I question the demand Wilmette needs for a hotel,” said Randy Gerber of Lockerbie Lane. “Hotels are known for theft, assault, battery—is that the kind of business we want to bring in?”

Gerber, who said he was a Marriott Inn rewards member, noted that traffic in his area, especially turning from Lockwood Road onto Old Orchard Road, was dangerous already, and that adding hotel shuttles and cabs would only make the situation worse. He said he also feared that guests--some of whom were likely to be college students--would drinking and partying at the site on the weekend.

“What's the perception of this neighborhood?” Gerber asked the commissioners. “We don't need a hotel. When our families come to Wilmette, they stay with us.”

Officials from Indiana-based White Lodging Services Corp., the developers overseeing the project, assured the Plan Commission that the inn was targeting respectable, middle-aged travelers with a median household income of $140,000.

Along with a swimming pool and fitness center, the hotel would have a library and business center.

“This is exactly the type of business development and investment that I have been working on since I was first elected,” Village President Christopher S. Canning said in a recent press release.

Other complaints dealt with a rooftop air-conditioner—which one resident said would sound as loud as an airplane propeller—overall ugliness of the building's exterior and a garbage bin behind one residence.

“My lot line and house directly abut that [garbage],” the older homeowner said of the planned trash collection space, “and I'm not looking forward to that.”

It was noted that the village required that commercial properties to fence off their large trash bins.

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