Boutique hotel development planned at 3350 N. Halsted

A boutique hotel that caters to gay travelers is being planned at 3350 N. Halsted in Boystown. Planned by Tryst Hotels, the project site is located midblock along N. Halsted St between W. Roscoe St and W. Buckingham Pl. A three-story building and one-story structure that was previously home to DS Tequila will be demolished to make way for the new development. 

Designed by Newlook Development, the project, dubbed The Tryst Chicago, is planned as a six-story mixed-use hotel building with 21 hotel keys, a restaurant, a venue space, and a rooftop pool with a bar and retractable roof. 

The building’s first floor will have the hotel lobby and a restaurant facing the street, with a corridor providing access to the venue space at the back of the ground floor. As designed, these spaces can be combined and connected or separated as needed for flexibility. 

The upper floors hold the 21 hotel keys, with larger suites facing the street and then more typical hotel rooms facing south and to the rear. A light well along the south side of the building provides light and air to the south-facing rooms. 

At the top of the building, the fifth floor provides lockers and restrooms as well as back of house service spaces for the rooftop pool deck above on the sixth floor. The rooftop will have two private pools and bar space for the hotel, and since the building’s height is just taller than its neighbor, the roof deck will have views of the city skyline to the south. 

Reaching 75 feet in height, the building has been designed to be elegant yet familiar within the neighborhood context, inspired by Chicago architecture and its use of steel, brick, and glass. The facade is divided into three bays and articulated by the introduction of balconies at the hotel floors, engaging the building with the streetscape while providing a premium amenity for hotel rooms that face the street. 

To allow for the scope of the project, the developer is seeking to rezone the site from C1-2 to C1-5 with a Planned Development designation. Approvals will be needed from the Chicago Plan Commission, Committee on Zoning, and City Council.