The Auditorium Annex, Congress Hotel
Life Span: 1889-Present
Location: Southwest corner of South Michigan Avenue and Congress Street
Architect: Clinton J. Warren
Chicago Tribune, May 1, 1892
FINE ANNEX TO THE AUDITORIUM.
Plans for the New Hotel at Michigan Avenue and Congress Street.
The fact that the project for the erection of a Michigan avenue hotel at the corner of Congress street has been absorbed by the Auditorium Building Association does not materially change the situation from an improvement standpoint. The building contemplated by William Fitzgerald will be the one built by the representatives of the Auditorium. Plans for this structure have been made by Clinton J. Warren, The ten stories high and building will be with but little
exterior ornamentation. The exterior features will be three round corner bays, running up through the building, and the heavy overhanging cornice. There will be two intermediate bays on the Michigan avenue front and four on the Congress street front. The building will, to a certain degree, resemble the Lexington Hotel now nearing completion at Twenty-second street.
Two entrances will open from the Michigan avenue side. The main entrance will open into a lobby, which will be located in the center of
The steam heating and electric lighting plant will be in a building partially detached from the main structure. It will be on the south line of the property on a lot which will be left unimproved to give air and light.
Chicago Tribune, May 24, 1892
Another acquisition has been made by the Auditorium Association. A frontage of thirty-eight and a half feet on Michigan avenue has been purchased in fee simple for $154,000. All of the previous transactions by which the Auditorium Association secured the extensive hotel site at the southwest corner of Michigan avenue and Congress street have been in the form of leases or leasehold transfers.
In the present instance Elisha Whitehead sells 38½×172 feet outright on the basis of $4,000 a front foot. The property consists of the Whitehead homestead, a residence at No. 223 Michigan avenue.
It is probable that in the history of Chicago real estate there has never been a more interesting series of transactions than that which bas its last chapter in the Whitehead sale. The initial transaction was the transfer of leaseholds of several holdings at the corner by William Fitzgerald. By the terms of these leases the Auditorium people secured control of a ground space 88×121 feet, and provided against the location of a rival hotel opposite the Auditorium. This property is in six parcels. On the Michigan avenue front is the corner with sixty-two feet of front. age owned by Rice & Friedman of Milwaukee and twenty-six feet owned by Charles Fullerton. In the rear of these properties fronting on Congress street are three holdings with a combined frontage of fifty-one feet. All of these lots, with the exception of that owned by. Charles Fullerton, were improved, but have been cleared ready for building operations. For the transfer of these leaseholds Mr. Fitzgerald is said to have secured $75,000.
The Auditorium Association at once announced its intention of using the site secured for an annex to the Auditorium, to be operated as a strictly European hotel. Within a week another lot adjoining was secured by lease from Frank J. Helner. It has a frontage of twenty-six feet and is also improved. The announcement was then made by agents of the association that no more land was necessary and that the space then secured, 114x 172 feet, would be entirely ample.
To Vacate an Alley.
By leasing the nest lot, however, it was found that a private alley running through the property in a somewbat irregular shape could be vacated, and negotiations were at once opened with Mrs. Wilmarth, the owner of the property. She was induced to part with 26x 172 feet for a term of ninety-nine years at an annual consideration of $5,200. This gave the association a compact, symmetrical ground space of 140×172 feet, which was considered more than sufficient for any possible needs. By the purchase of the Whitehead property another addition is made to the site of the projected Auditorium annex.
The site at the present writing has a frontage of 172 feet. on Congress street, 178½ on Michigan avenue, and an equal west frontage on an alley.
Not content with such conquests on the Michigan avenue side the association is Inok-ing with envious eyes across this alley to the lot owned by W. H. Colvin. Negotiations are under way, with every prospeet of success. for a ninety-nine year lease of this property, which has a north frontage of twenty-six feet on Congress street. If this lot is secured a building will be placed on it to be occupied by the power plant both of the Auditorium Hotel proper and of the Auditorium Annex, in course of construction by a branch corporation known as the Congress Hotel company. In case it is not leased the power plant for the new building will be located on the rear of the Whitehead and Wilmarth lots.
It is said that the plans of the new building will not be altered on account of any recent acquisitions, as the Wilmarth and Whitehead houses will be remodeled and left until fur. ther extensions of the Auditorium annex are required. The last transaction gives the new hotel project almost as much Michigan avenue frontage as was provided for the Auditorium proper. The frontage north of Congress street amounts to 186.67 feet, while south of this street the frontage is 178 feet.
- A view of Michigan Avenue, from the viaduct during the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893, showing people boarding the so-called “Cattle Cars” to take them to the fair. The first part of the Auditorium Annex (Congress Hote)l, the Auditorium and the Studebaker Building (Fine Arts), and in the distance the statue of Columbus can be seen.
Inter Ocean, November 21, 1892
The new Auditorium annex, now nearing completion, is attracting a great deal of attention. It will practically be a separate hotel, will have a separate office, and will be run by a new force of clerks. It will be strictly on the European plan, and it is whispered that Ward McAllister will be here to open it. Two of the Vanderbilts will have suites of apartments there during the entire six months of the fair. The present restaurant in the main building will then be used as a gentleman’s cafe. It will be too much effort for the patrons of the hotel to walk from one to the other, and the distance is not great enough to ride so a movable sidewalk will be constructed in a tunnel under Congress street connecting the two places, so that when they are overcome with ennui they will have an amusement was is better than a merry-go-round.
The Inter Ocean, November 24, 1906
Auditorium, the name which has been famous, which for Chicago was as the Waldorf-Astoria, after the first of the year will no longer be associated with a hotel.
“The Congress Hotel and Annex” is the title by which the group of tall hotel buildings on Michigan avenue, to the south of Congress street, will be designated. The name Auditorium and Auditorium Annex will be dropped. It is likely that the huge pile to the north of Congress street, which contains the Auditorium theater and Auditorium hotel, will be turned into an office building, for which it is admirably fitted, although the theater will be retained.
The Congress Hotel company, which now operates the Auditorium and Auditorium Annex in conjunction, leases the Auditorium, but owns the Annex and the new addition to the latter. The lease expires at the end of the year and will not be renewed. Under such conditions the Congress Hotel company is precluded from employing the word Auditorium.
While the main title of the group of three hotel buildings to the south of Congress street will be the Congress hotel, the word Annex will be appended. The word Annex is too valuable to part with, since it was invented by the public in the first instance and has been given in the public mind a special significance. Hence, with the completion of the third structure, popularly known as the Annex, to the Annex, of the Annex, the new name and title in full will read “The Congress Hotel and Annex.”
Inter Ocean, April 28, 1912
A noteworthy transaction in Michigan avenue property, interesting both because of the history attached to the land and the illustration it affords of an enormous increase in values within the last ten years, was closed Thursday. The Congress Hotel company bought from E. Burton Holmes the 26 feet frontage at 520 South Michigan avenue, forming part of the hotel’s site, for $115,000, the purchase being the exercise of an option contained in a long term lease. Simeon Straus attended to all the legal details, representing both parties.
The property was bought in 1859 by Stiles Burton and was occupied as a homestead by the family until 1902, when Mrs. Virginia Burton Holmes. a daughter, leased the ground to the hotel company for ninety-nine years at a net rental of $4,000 a year, with an option to purchase at any time prior to July 1, 1912. for $115.000. Valuing this property on the basis fixed by competent appraisers for the Blair lot adjoining on the south, $11,000 a front foot. would make the Holmes piece worth $286,000, so that Its purchase by the hotel company at the option price actually adds $171.300 to the assets of that corporation.
An interesting feature of the transaction is the fact that Mrs. Ann W. Burton, widow of the original purchaser of the property, still survives at the age of 93 and joined in the conveyance Mrs. Burton now lives at the Congress hotel
- The Congress Hotel was built in three sections. The first unit was opened during the World’s Fair and operated as part of the Auditorium Hotel. In 1902 another Annex was built. Four years later the third. Photo from 1929.
- The Pomperian Room at the Congress as it was in 1903.
- Congress Hotel
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map
1906
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