Hotel Florence is a 144-year-old Queen Anne beauty that once graced the company town of Pullman, where namesake passenger rail cars were made, on Chicago’s far south side.
In recent decades it has been allowed to slide into disrepair and dormancy, excluding the occasional tour mainly on the ground floor to view some of its remaining opulent rooms.
Now, the State of Illinois is calling for developers to come forward with plans to renovate and reopen the hotel and a later annex, in an area of town that has tourist potential in a wider campus showing off the remnants of the historic rail manufacturing facility and beyond.
The state is helping to kick along the process by setting aside $21 million for restoration as well as for some other buildings. They include a private passenger car used by Pullman president Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln. The purpose, it states, is to “provide an economic asset to the greater Pullman community.”
“Preserving Hotel Florence is about much more than saving a building,” Historic Pullman Foundation executive director Robert Montgomery, said. “It’s about safeguarding a cornerstone of American history, where stories of innovation, community and progress continue to inspire future generations.”
But the organization that has long championed the hotel’s salvation and eventual reopening is Preservation Chicago.
The hotel, suitable for a company town, was built to have Pullman’s clients, such as railway parts salesmen and rail company executives, stay right on the property while doing business with Pullman. Keeping it all in the family, George Pullman named the 50-room building after his daughter.
The State of Illinois’s Historic Preservation Agency has kept the title for more than 30 years, as it has numerous historic sites. And it’s decision to seek private development is a sign it is tapped out administratively and financially.
“There’s a lot of agencies that are looking for support from state funds and I think the state came to the realization of that,” Preservation Chicago executive director Ward Miller said. “I think the state realized that they’re, you know, they’re not in the in the hotel business.”
Miller said it will take a “special kind” of developer to appreciate the building’s history, restore it while preserving its “fabulous” interiors, while bringing it up to code, including disability access.
And then the operator will have to manage it as a tourist site, particularly for people who appreciate heritage and, well, something like railroading.
He said guest rooms could be on the upper floors and in the adjoining annex, leaving large downstairs rooms as lounges or a restaurant.
But the concept would work better if the surrounding historic site including the Pullman visitors’ center, old administration building and so-called North Factory Wing and Rear Erecting Shop, saw revitalization.
“I think that would be an exciting place for families, kids who are interested in railroad cars, architects and historians,” Miller said. “I think there’s a great value there.”
He said a template is the Chicago Athletic Association boutique hotel downtown, revitalized and it “looks like it’s on the Grand Canal in Venice,” and has become a magnate for locals and visitors alike.
“With the Venetian Gothic architecture people love it.”
Next steps, Miller said, would be tying the Pullman district into a wider national urban park.
“Wherever there’s a possibility of looking to the National Parks Service I think there would be great interest.”
The railway campus could be linked to nearby Lake Michigan linear park land. It could be like Washington’s National Mall, San Francisco’s Presidio or St. Louis’s Gateway Arch grounds, he said.
“We thought this would be a great way of joining Pullman and even the story of the Underground Railroad — next to Pullman — and tie it along this whole lakefront stretch and turn brownfields into green park spaces.”
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