Etta James, 1938-2012

...and no more fitting epitaph can be found than this.

Local hotel redevelopment plans continue to be very, very weird indeed

First it was the Chicago Sheraton Northwest. Now it's this:

Vacant since 2007 and full of mold, the Lincolnwood landmark locals call The Purple Hotel may be saved from the wrecking ball by a North Shore developer.

When you have an architecturally significant property with so much history and nostalgia, you can really do some wonderful things with it," said Jake Weiss of Weiss Properties, a Skokie development firm that specializes in resurrecting vacant properties.

Weiss has partnered with North Capital Group, which recently bought the hotel's mortgage note, to possibly redevelop the long-shuttered building as a boutique hotel with a convention center and retail space.

But first, Weiss said his team must navigate a series of legal complications: A bankruptcy involving the hotel's current owner, a foreclosure and a judge's Aug. 1 order that gave the village of Lincolnwood permission to tear down what some call an eyesore at Touhy and Lincoln avenues.

An "eyesore"? I suppose I have to bring up that facet of the story up as well...

The Purple Hotel had a few owners after the Hyatt company left, briefly becoming a Radisson, then a Ramada. It's been owned since 2004 by Village Resorts Inc.

In 2007, frustrated with building and health problems, Lincolnwood got a court order to have the hotel closed until its 30-plus violations were remedied, officials said.

"The building posed a threat," said Lincolnwood Village Manager Timothy Wiberg. In 2005 and 2006, patrons began complaining about rodents, mold and lack of sanitary conditions, Wiberg said.

Having stayed in that hovel two years in a row (for the two Reactors that were held there in 2005 and 2006) well after Capricon quit the place in 1991, I can testify to the factual basis of that mold problem (in the form of a black glob of the stuff that was bigger than a golf ball and seemed to be eating the writing desk in the room I was staying in in '06) and the only thing I can say to Mr. Weiss is that I want no part of what he and the rest of his company were smoking when they came up with this deal.