Hotel with Skyline Views near Downtown Chicago’s Shopping

The Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza River North is located in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, just blocks from the Magnificent Mile. This stretch of Michigan Avenue is lined with famous boutiques and department stores. But you’re forgiven if you just want to hang out on hotel property for a while: an award-winning renovation recently updated the hotel’s lobby, restaurants, and guest rooms and earned the Holiday Inn a LEED Gold Certification. During your stay, you’ll have access to the hotel’s two dining venues, a heated indoor pool, and Merchandise Mart, which is lined with world-famous interior-design companies.

Almost everywhere you look from the hotel, you’ll have views of the Chicago River and the city skyline. The 15th-floor lounge, Cityscape Bar, wrapped in floor-to-ceiling windows, is a great place to watch the sun set and drink a signature martini. You can also see the city’s downtown silhouette from most of the guest rooms available with this Getaway.

The hotel restaurant doesn’t have city views, but it has plenty to look at: red stained glass and modern furnishings fill the room, where you can enjoy contemporary Italian- and Asian-inspired cuisine.

Chicago’s River North: World-Class Art Galleries, Restaurants, and Nightlife near Downtown

Bordering the Loop on the northern side of the Chicago River, the River North neighborhood is where the skyscrapers of downtown give way to the award-winning restaurants and trendy nightspots of the North Side. Once an industrial area, River North is today home to architectural gems—look no further than The Contemporaine residential building on Wells Street—as well as eateries to suit every appetite and budget. Your options range from inventive Peruvian cuisine at Tanta Restaurant to Chicago classics such as Portillo’s. You could spend days working your way through the offerings at Eataly, an Italian mecca with 23 separate restaurants and food stalls.

In addition to its formidable culinary presence, River North boasts the country’s largest concentration of art galleries outside of Manhattan. Born around the same time that Jim Nutt and other Chicago Imagists rose to prominence, the River North Gallery District runs along Chicago, Superior and Huron Streets, occupying century-old, red brick warehouses that have been converted into lofts and exhibition spaces.

Amid River North’s restaurants, condos, nightclubs, and galleries, you’ll also find the leaders of Chicago’s rapidly growing tech sector. Among the companies that have offices here: Google, a gaggle of digital startups at the 1871 co-working space, and, yes, Groupon (we’re in the old Montgomery Ward building, where the mail-order catalog was born).

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