Rockford near deal to turn Amerock building into $50 million hotel and convention center - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

By Brian Leaf

ROCKFORD - Wisconsin-based Gorman & Co. is close to an agreement that would return the city's first skyscraper to downtown prominence as a $50 million hotel and convention center.

A proposed development agreement to renovate the 13-story Ziock building, perhaps better known as the Amerock building, at 416 S. Main St., is expected to go before the Rockford City Council in March.

"I'm feeling very good about it," Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey said, "but we've had a lot of things to work through. Gorman is an extremely capable firm. They've done a lot of projects of significant magnitude across the country."

… company had done projects in four states and 25 communities, including Milwaukee, where it turned the brew house and mill house at the shuttered Pabst brewery into a 90-room extended-stay hotel, The Brewhouse Inn & Suites.

….The Ziock project involves state and federal tax credits, which will pay for 45 percent of construction costs. The state tax credit program requires the building to be in use by the end of 2016, so the company hopes to proceed quickly.

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