An off year for big events at McCormick Place has dealt downtown hotel investors the gut punch they expected.  After a bitter cold start to the year and a convention calendar that brought a fraction of the business that filled room nights last year, revenue per available room at downtown hotels through July was $140.82, down 6.5 percent from the same period in 2018, according to data from STR, a suburban Nashville, Tenn.-based research firm.  It’s the lowest the key performance metric has been for that period since 2014, according to STR, underscoring a tough year with periods of starvation that hotel owners anticipated after a banner 2018. Click here to read more at Crain’s Chicago Business…