Bally's Chicago

Bally's Corporation is building a 500-room, 34-to-35-story hotel tower as the guest-facing centerpiece of its permanent $1.8 billion Chicago casino on the river in River West. Construction is well underway — the casino topped off in May 2026 — with a hotel opening now targeted for early 2027, six months later than originally planned.

The place

The tower rises in River West, on the north bank of the Chicago River near W. Grand Avenue — a former industrial stretch being reshaped by the wider $1.8 billion Bally's Chicago casino resort. The site sits alongside a planned 2-acre public park and an extension of the Chicago Riverwalk, with a water taxi stop for guests arriving by river rather than by car.

The concept

This is new construction, not a conversion: Bally's has been running a temporary casino inside the old Medinah Temple since 2023 while it builds this permanent, roughly 34-to-35-story glass-and-metal hotel tower a few blocks away. The hotel is the guest-facing half of a casino resort that also includes a 160,000-square-foot gaming floor, a nearly 3,000-seat theater and a rooftop restaurant and bar overlooking the river. Construction has slipped roughly six months from Bally's original schedule after the tower's footprint was relocated for infrastructure reasons, and the casino portion only topped off in May 2026 — worth watching before treating any opening date as fixed.

Dining & wellness

Bally's and its architects have described six food-and-beverage venues across the resort, including a roughly 15,000-square-foot food hall, a specialty restaurant with a riverfront terrace, and a rooftop bar with skyline views — but no chef, operator or restaurant brand names have been announced publicly as of mid-2026.