The Omni Orrington — the closest hotel to the Evanston Campus — is getting a facelift.

The hotel, 1710 Orrington Ave., closed Jan. 2 for renovation and will reopen in June as a four-star hotel with a new name and new management after a $22-million remodeling, hotel spokeswoman Susan Stoga said.

Greenfield Partners LLC purchased the hotel last February, intending to upgrade the property to attract new business and turn around the hotel’s flagging performance.

“It was a pretty depressed property,” said Gregory DeStefano, Greenfield’s senior vice-president for design and development. “It was run down, it wasn’t making money.”

Stoga said the renamed Hotel Orrington will also feature an accredited business conference center, scheduled to open in September.

Greenfield also bought the adjacent Mcdonald’s, 1700 Orrington, which will be replaced with a yet-to-be-determined restaurant.

Although one goal of the renovation is to attract new clients, Northwestern students will remain “a large chunk” of the hotel’s business, DeStefano said.

“We have a close relationship with them,” DeStefano said. “They’re our biggest client.”

In particular, DeStefano said, the hotel should attract overflow from NU’s Allen Center, and he expects the university will use the Orrington’s new conference center “extensively.”

Evanston’s business community also will benefit from the conference center’s opening, said Dick Peach, president of the Evanston Chamber of Commerce.

“We think it’s probably one of the nicest things to happen in a long time,” Peach said.

As one of the few conference centers on Chicago’s North Shore accredited by the International Association of Conference Centers, the renovated hotel will allow Evanston to draw in more conferences, a segment of business that couldn’t be reached as effectively before, Peach said.

“It was long overdue that we had a hotel that meets those standards,” he said.

Even the hotel’s main competitor, the Hilton Garden Inn Evanston,1818 Maple Ave., expects to gain from the Orrington’s upgrade, said Hilton’s general manager, David Streeter.

“When they do the renovations, they’ll really be a four-star hotel again,” Streeter said.

But Streeter said the two hotels will no longer be directly competing after the Orrington’s renovation.

“We should have different niches,” Streeter said. “It should be a good thing for the community and a good thing for us as well.”

In preparation for the renovation, the hotel is holding a liquidation sale to dispose of beds, chests, linens, tables and even pedestal sinks. The sale, which began Thursday, will continue for 30 days or until all items are sold, according to the Web site announcement posted by National Content Liquidators, Inc., the firm running the sale.

The Orrington hopes to reopen in time for NU’s commencement ceremony in June, Stoga said.

Even if the hotel does not open in time, the impact of the reduction in hotel rooms near campus should be minimal, said Sheila Dworak, the special events assistant. She noted that hotels near campus usually book up quickly in any case, and many families choose to stay at hotels further from campus to get cheaper rates.

Though the hotel’s closing might make visits to NU “slightly less convenient” for prospective students and other visitors, NU Director of Undergraduate Admission Keith Todd said he doesn’t expect the Orrington’s status to cause any significant problems.

“My sense,” Todd said, “is that there will be plenty of rooms available (from other hotels).”