Local Arrangements

Venue

PODC 2016 (except the banquet) and its collocated workshops will be held in downtown Chicago at the Loyola University (Water Tower Campus). For a map of the Loyola University (Water Tower Campus), click here.

Specific venues are listed below.

UPDATED VENUE INFORMATION:

PODC sessions and lunches on July 27 and 28 will be held at 16th Floor of Lewis Towers at 111 East Pearson Street, Chicago. This location is two buildings away from the previously announced venue for the PODC sessions, and is also a part of the Loyola University (Water Tower Campus). The 16th Floor of Lewis Towers is called Regents Hall .

Venue for the workshops on Friday, July 29 remains unchanged. In particular, the workshops will be held in rooms 207, 208 and 209 of Corboy Law Center (CLC) at 25 East Pearson Street, Chicago, which is a part of the Loyola University (Water Tower Campus).

The banquet on July 27 (Wednesday) will be held at Hotel Palomar Chicago, 505 North State Street, Chicago, IL 60654.

Please contact Nitin Vaidya (+1 217-649-5326, nhv@illinois.edu) if you need additional information.

Accommodations

Whitehall Hotel: A limited number of rooms is blocked for PODC attendees for the nights of July 24 through July 29, 2016 at the rate of $179 (for single or double occupancy, excluding taxes and fees) at the Whitehall Hotel at 105 East Delaware Place, Chicago, IL 60611. The rate is available only for reservations made by June 24, 2016, until the PODC room block is fully booked.

  • To reserve a room at the Whitehall Hotel at the PODC 2016 rate, click here. Attendees may also contact Whitehall Hotel Front Desk at +1 312-944-6300 and ask for In-House Reservations, or call +1 312-573-6224 during business hours of 8:00 am-5:00 pm CST Monday-Friday and 7:00 am-3:30 pm CST Saturday. Attendees may also leave a message for the reservations desk, and they should return the call promptly. Please mention the group name “Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)” in order to receive the special rate.
  • Intermittent problems are encountered with the hotel reservation website. If you have difficulty booking a room through the website, please call the hotel directly. One of the intermittent problems is that the website may show rooms unavailable for certain nights even if rooms are indeed available in the PODC block. Another known problem is that the website is sometimes unable to handle a multi-night reservation that includes the night of July 28. Separating the reservations into two reservations, i.e., one with arrival date of July 28, and another for earlier part of the stay, seems to solve this issue.
  • Due to difficulties with the hotel reservation website, if you are not able to book a room via the hotel website, please contact the hotel at the above number.  Contact Nitin Vaidya (nhv@illinois.edu) if you have any questions.
  • Once the hotel informs the organizers that the room block is full, we will post a note here.

Loyola University Graduate-Student Style Shared Apartment Housing:  Rooms in a limited number of graduate student-style apartments (shared with other occupants) may be reserved until June 16, 2016, subject to availability. The rate is $88.05 per person per night. Please read information about the available rooms carefully before making a reservation. Note that these are shared apartments, and include shared bathrooms. Guests are assigned to each apartment based on specified gender (you will be asked to specify your gender when making a reservation). Visit http://lodging.luc.edu to make a reservation, and follow these instructions: (i) enter Promotion Code podc. (ii) Location suitable for PODC conference is “Baumhart-Water Tower”. Please select this location. (iii) On the reservation page, once the appropriate information has been provided, you will need to press the PROCEED button to continue. If the PROCEED button is not visible, either press “Jump to top” link or scroll up to the top to find the PROCEED button.

Nearby hotels: There are several other hotels within a short distance of the conference venue. Some nearby hotels are listed below along with their address and approximate distance from the conference venue. We recommend reading reviews for the hotels at travel websites such as TripAdvisor before making a reservation.

Hotel room rates are subject to change. However, during a search conducted in May 2016 for rooms for the PODC period, at hotels marked below with (*), the organizers were able to find rooms at rates close to the above rate at the Whitehall Hotel.

Visitor Information

For visitor information provided by Loyola University, click here. Note that Loyola University has multiple campuses. PODC will be held at their Water Tower Campus in downtown Chicago at the address provided above.

The websites below provide information regarding Chicago weather and events:

AccuWeather website
gochicago.about.com
City of Chicago Festival and Events Website

Airports

Chicago is served by two major airports: Chicago O’Hare and Chicago Midway. Various airlines have direct flights to Chicago from a large number of cities around the world.

Visas

If you need a visa to attend the conference, ACM can issue a visa support letter for you. Click here for more information.

Contact Information

For queries regarding local arrangements, please contact Nitin Vaidya (nhv@illinois.edu).