Pheasant Run Resort plans to remain open

ST. CHARLES – Even though the financially-strapped Pheasant Run Resort is for sale and plans are to lay off a majority of the resort's staff next month, the resort is set to remain open.

"We are moving to a limited service model," Pheasant Run states on its Facebook page. "We do not have plans to close at this time."

Zanies Comedy Club, which is part of the resort, has not announced what it will be doing. An online auction for the 56-year-old resort is set to take place from Jan. 27-29, according to the website ten-x.com. Bidding starts at $2 million.

Colliers International real estate services and investment management company had previously listed Pheasant Run as being for sale on its website. During the recession in 2011, the 293-room resort at 4051 E. Main St. went into foreclosure. A hotel investors group in 2014 bought Pheasant Run, which since then has been managed by Schaumburg-based Hostmark Hospitality Group.

The city had received a letter from Hostmark Hospitality Group about Pheasant Run's proposal to restructure, which includes a plan to lay off 149 of the resort's 190 employees by mid-January.

Pheasant Run employees 190 people. According to the letter that consistent with the restructuring plan, "employment separations are expected to commence on or possibly before Jan. 12, 2020."

Hostmark was required to notify the city of the pending layoffs as part of the Illinois Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires employers with 75 or more full-time employees to give workers and state and local government officials 60 days advance notice of a plant closing or mass layoff.

According to the letter, the layoffs may come in stages, depending on business demands as the resort undergoes restructuring. Among those being laid off are eight room attendants, 14 bartenders, three banquet bartenders, four host/hostesses, 14 cocktail servers, five food servers, a bar manager, a baker, an assistant executive chef, 10 cooks, two dishwashers, two reservation agents, two convention services managers, two golf superintendents, nine groundskeepers, a human resources coordinator, a director of sales and marketing, a marketing manager and two sales managers.

Edward McArdle opened Pheasant Run Resort in February 1963 on land that was previously a dairy farm owned by Colonel Edward Baker.