Officials postpone latest Wilmette hotel hearing

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Village officials agreed Tuesday to postpone for at least a month a Wilmette Plan Commission hearing on the proposed White Lodging hotel development being opposed by neighbors in a west Wilmette neighborhood.

The hearing — to review site-plan changes in the planned unit development White Lodging is requesting for the Residence Inn hotel it wants to build at 3201 Old Glenview Road — had been set for Tuesday night.

The extra time was requested by Lockerbie Lane neighbor Larry Rogers, Wilmette Community Development Director John Adler said. The next time commissioners could hear the case would be March 6, he said.

Rogers and neighbors who oppose the hotel wanted time to review communications between Wilmette and White Lodging, which they had received as part of a Freedom of Information request, neighbor Chris Johnson said Tuesday.

“We asked for everything that took place between the last Plan Commission meeting (in October) and now … the amount was quite voluminous, so Larry asked for some time,” Johnson said.

Adler said the White Lodging development team agreed to the postponement.

Indiana-based White Lodging announced its intention last year to build the 130-unit extended stay hotel for Marriott on 1.6 acres of commercial property off the Edens Expressway. White Lodging wants to start construction of the hotel this year, and open it in 2013.

Neighbors, particularly in the adjacent pocket neighborhood of Lockerbie Lane, objected, saying the project is too dense and too close to their homes.

Despite that, Plan Commission members gave first-round approval to the plan in September and sent it Wilmette village trustees, who approved it in October. The case then reverted to the Plan Commission for a site-plan review that would incorporate changes the Village Board wanted.