Down Another Hotel

[billroper]

I heard from Rick Waterson today that the Arlington Park Sheraton is closing. This doesn't surprise me.

The Sheraton hosted Windycon, Capricon, and Duckon at various times (and under various names). Capricon would probably still be there if the owners hadn't decided to build the water park. This ate a big chunk of the con's function space and caused the owners to not want to host the con so that they could rent those rooms to people who wanted to stay at the hotel and go to the water park.

I predicted that those people didn't really exist -- that anyone who was motivated enough to stay in the hotel overnight would go up to the water park near Gurnee Mills where one or the other parent could spend time shopping and where there are numerous restaurants to eat at. I may have been completely correct or it may just have been the recession taking the air out of the scheme.

I suspect that someone will eventually reopen the facility, because it's more valuable as a hotel and water park than it is as vacant land. But not right now.

Comments

[janmagic.livejournal.com]

fandom always talked about building its own hotel.. now we only have to buy one and remodel it back to our tastes!!!

what did tucker do with all of those bricks?

[lonotter.livejournal.com]

Besides questioning if they'd actually get customers given their location, etc., and the economy thing, there's the fact that the original hotel seemed to be falling to pieces. A spiffy water park only goes so far when the elevator doesn't work, yadda yadda. My SWAG is that they'd have been better off to invest the millions in upgrading the existing facilities.