The timing was coincidental but totally appropriate: at two separate meetings on a single day last week, announcements were made revealing the very different fates of the Three Arts Club building, at 1300 N. Dearborn, and the organization that owned it for nearly a century.
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At an open meeting hosted by 42nd Ward alderman Brendan Reilly on March 11 at City Hall, a couple dozen people, mostly from the building’s Gold Coast neighborhood, learned that M Development will be signing a long-term lease with a British firm that will turn the four-story structure into Soho House Chicago, a boutique hotel promoted as a private club.
The firm, which has five similar club hotels in England, opened Soho House New York five years ago and has properties under way in Los Angeles and Miami. M Development’s Jeffrey Shapack said Soho is a good neighbor, blind to celebrity, and thriving; according to a video he showed, there are currently 15,000 members chainwide, with half that many more waiting years to get in. But the Manhattan club, after being featured on Sex in the City, has a reputation as a hangout for gawkers, and as of last week, according to its membership office, there were plenty of open slots (fees there are over $1,400 a year). Besides, you don’t have to join to play: if you can drop, say, $500 for a room, they’ll make you a “member for a day,” with full privileges.
Grimm then rolled out the roster of annual grants. The signature program, she said, will bestow unrestricted $15,000 cash awards—mini genius grants—on 6 artists selected from a field of 54 compiled by 18 anonymous nominators. Another six artists will get $750 stipends along with two-week residencies at the Ragdale artists’ retreat in Lake Forest. And starting next year an additional award of $32,000 will go to an organization that serves women artists.
