Closure and timing
The Plaza, the Fifth Avenue hotel on Central Park South in Manhattan, will stop taking guests from January 2027 for at least four years. Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, which manages the property, announced the plan on Wednesday, 14 October. One Greek report gives 19 January as the expected closing date, but no reopening date has been fixed. Focus puts the earliest possible reopening in 2031. The work targets the facade of the 18-storey building, which is under heritage protection and is one of only 288 buildings in the United States with the Historic Hotels of America designation, according to Euronews.
- Hotel opens
- Hotel last suspends operations for renovation, per Town & Country
- Operator announces the closure plan
- Expected closing date, per one Greek report
- Earliest possible reopening, according to Focus
What the operator says
Fairmont has not said what the renovation will change or how much it will cost. In its statement it stressed the complexity of preserving a building of such architectural and historical weight, and pointed to detailed design work and coordination with the relevant authorities. It also named the safety of guests, employees and the wider community as concerns in the project. Reception staff at the event rooms and at the Palm Court restaurant said those spaces will also close in January. Reports do not say whether residents of the apartments in the building will have to move out during the work.
The building and its history
The hotel opened on 1 October 1907 and was designed by the architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh. Its design follows French Renaissance chateaux, and one Greek report describes the building as resembling a fortress. It now has 282 hotel rooms and 181 apartments, according to the New York Times. The hotel has had at least six owners, among them Donald Trump, under whose ownership it went bankrupt in the 1990s. Part of the building was converted into apartments in the early 2000s.
Previous closure and famous guests
Town & Country reported that the hotel last suspended operations in April 2005, when a renovation costing $450 million transformed the building before it reopened. Focus says it stayed closed from 2005 to 2008. Its film credits include Home Alone 2 (1992), in which Donald Trump makes a brief appearance, and Bride Wars. Guests over the decades have included the Beatles, Liza Minnelli and Frank Lloyd Wright. ABC, cited by stern.de, counts the building among the most filmed and most mentioned buildings in popular culture.
Staff and their jobs
Sources differ on the size of the workforce. One report says more than 300 employees work at the hotel, while a union spokesperson told a Greek outlet that 378 members worked at the Plaza. The New York Times reports that staff would have the right to return to their positions on the same pay once the hotel reopens. The Hotel & Gaming Trades Council, which represents hotel workers, will try to find them other jobs in the meantime. Details on the future of the staff have not been given beyond these commitments.