Work already is underway at the Allerton, which closes Friday, Aug. 7. The hotel will reopen in Spring 1999 as the Allerton Crowne Plaza(R) following renovations costing more than $40 million. Crowne Plaza is an upscale brand of Bass Hotels and Resorts (formerly Holiday Hospitality). Current retail tenants Brooks Brothers and Enzo Angiolini will remain and continue operations throughout the renovation.

Using historic photographs and blueprints, architects will restore the Allerton's distinctive Italian Renaissance exterior to closely match the original. For example, the limestone facade that once decorated the first three floors will be painstakingly replicated. The familiar Allerton and Tip Top Tap signs at the top of the building also will be restored.

"Every aspect of the Allerton's interior and exterior will be significantly renovated," said Peter Steketee, the hotel's general manager. "While the exterior will be restored to its original design, interior renovations will ready the hotel for the 2lst century."

The old Tip Top Tap space on the 23rd floor, best remembered as the home of Don McNeil's "Breakfast Club" radio show of the 1950s, most recently has been used as a hotel meeting space. The renovation will transform it into the elegant Renaissance Ballroom overlooking Michigan Avenue, a unique venue for intimate and elegant social functions.

Nine other fully renovated meeting rooms will give the hotel 10,000 square feet of meeting space. A new lobby and new public spaces will be added on the ground, third and fourth floors, and a new restaurant and bar will be built on the second floor. Many of the hotel's 443 guest rooms, including 60 suites, will feature spacious work areas and amenities such as dual-line phones and in-room safes. A wide range of business services, meeting facilities and fitness options also will be available.

"The hotel will exceed the expectations of today's savvy travelers," Steketee said. All elevators and mechanical systems, including electrical, plumbing and safety systems, will be replaced. The hotel also will be reworked to address Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) issues.

In June, the City of Chicago designated the Allerton a historical landmark and granted it special "Class L" real-estate tax status, which provides incentives for renovating and restoring historic structures. The hotel opened as the Chicago Allerton House on North Michigan Avenue at Huron Street in 1924, when the intersection was new. It offered single men, and later women, affordable homes with the services of a good hotel and the sociability of a private club. Today, the hotel serves corporate, leisure and convention travelers.

"We feel that by restoring this hotel, we are making an important contribution to Chicago's history," Steketee said. "We are excited about undertaking a thoughtful, caring restoration of this local landmark at the best location on the Magnificent Mile."

The renovation project team consists of the Eckenhoff Saunders architectural firm and Pepper Construction, both of Chicago, and Designers II of Atlanta. Eckenhoff Saunders has designed renovation and restoration projects for a number of Chicago buildings, such as the 122 South Michigan Avenue Building (the last building designed by Daniel Burnham) and the Covenant Club at 10 North Dearborn. W. Stephen Saunders will head the project. He is the firm's principal and immediate past president of The Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Crowne Plaza is an upscale brand of Bass Hotels and Resorts. Crowne Plaza hotels offer guests value with substantially upgraded amenities, rigorous service standards and full-service meeting facilities. They are designed to meet the needs of discriminating business and leisure travelers. More than 140 Crowne Plaza hotels and resorts operate in 40 countries, offering more than 40,000 rooms to upscale business and leisure travelers worldwide.

The Allerton hosted job fairs, offered severance bonuses and provided access to job placement and training programs for employees displaced by its temporary closure. Employees displaced by the closure will be the first invited to apply for positions when the hotel reopens.

The Allerton is operated by Dallas-based Bristol Hotels Resorts (NYSE: BH), which purchased the hotel in January 1997 from the Allerton Hotel Partnership. Following a spin-off/merger transaction last month, the Allerton and 85 other former Bristol properties now are owned by FelCor Lodging Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of FelCor Lodging Trust (NYSE: FCH). Bristol is one of the largest operators of full-service hotels in North America and operates the largest number of Bass Hotels and Resorts branded hotels in the world. Bristol's more than 120 hotels include nearly 33,000 rooms in 27 states and Canada. They operate in the mid-priced to upscale segments of the industry and are located in 19 of the top 25 lodging markets in the United States. Bristol operates nearly 100 Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn properties and is a leading franchisee in Bass' billion-and-a-half-dollar modernization program. By the year 2000, Bristol will have overseen the investment of $400 million in the redevelopment of Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn hotels.

On July 27, Bristol Hotel Company spun off all of its nonreal-estate holdings into the newly formed public company, Bristol Hotels Resorts, then transferred its real estate assets to FelCor Lodging Trust on July 28. The transaction made Bristol the largest independent hotel operating company in North America and FelCor the largest non-paired share hotel REIT (real estate investment trust) in the nation.