With the backing of hotel owners and the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association, the city’s tax on hotel rooms downtown, near McCormick Place, the Illinois Medical District and Hyde Park will rise from 17.5% to 19%, the highest in the nation.

NASCAR will not be returning to Chicago streets next summer. But while the race leaves town for at least one year, the state’s fiscal year 2026 budget still contains several millions of dollars for NASCAR.

The future of NASCAR in Chicago is murky going into its third edition on the first weekend in July. The three-year contract between the motorsports organization and the city that was announced in 2022 has two mutual options, and their fate is unclear.

A year-round immersive horror experience from NBCUniversal will open in Chicago across from the new Bally’s Casino. Universal Horror Unleashed: Chicago will be the company’s first branded experience in the Midwest.

The race, which transformed the streets of downtown into a 2.2-mile street course, is already set to make its return to Chicago next summer.

Readers of the lifestyle travel magazine Condé Nast Traveler voted Chicago as the best big city in the U.S. for the eighth year in a row, as part of the magazine’s annual readers’ choice awards. Chicago has been named best big city in the U.S. every year since 2017.

The permanent casino will be four times as big as the temporary casino now open at the Medinah Temple at Ohio Street and Wabash Avenue.

Chicagoans and tourists feeling lucky can play 800 slot games and 56 table games in the century-old Shriner’s temple at 600 N. Wabash Ave., with its distinctive domed ceilings and stained-glass windows.

Chicagoans and tourists feeling lucky can play 800 slot games and 56 table games in the century-old Shriner’s temple at 600 N. Wabash Ave., with its distinctive domed ceilings and stained-glass windows.

Starting this Tuesday and continuing through the spring of 2024, construction will be taking place in Grainger Plaza, the area of Millennium Park that houses the more formally named “Cloud Gate.”

On Monday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the state’s legislative leadership and representatives of the hospitality industry announced that hotels in Illinois saw record revenues in fiscal year 2023, which ended June 30.

It is not clear exactly when Bally’s will be able to open a temporary casino in the century-old Shriner’s temple at 600 N. Wabash Ave., with its distinctive domed ceilings and stained-glass windows. A Chicago landmark since 2001, the temple was most recently home to a Bloomingdale’s furniture store.

The Black Crowes and Charley Crockett round out the music lineup for Chicago Street Race Weekend, July 1-2.

Bally’s Chicago casino is set to have 3,400 slots and 173 table games in addition to an exhibition hall, 500-room hotel, a 3,000-seat theater and 11 restaurants. The development will include a 2,100-square-foot park and walking path along the river and a three-level underground parking garage, according to the plans released by city officials.

The $1.74 billion proposal still needs the approval of the Illinois Gaming Board, which must license Bally’s to operate the Chicago casino set to be built along the Chicago River near Chicago Avenue and Halsted Street.

Two Chicago high-rises hit the market, leaving more than 700 downtown apartments up for sale. And a loan tied to a distressed hotel in River North sells at a steep discount.