The Plaza Hotel will close for four years from January for facade work
Palm Court afternoons, 282 rooms and the event spaces all shut, while the fate of 181 condos is unresolved.
The Plaza Hotel will close its doors to guests in January for at least four years while its landmark-protected facade is repaired and restored. Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, the operator, announced the decision, calling the property an enduring part of New York's architectural and cultural heritage.
All 282 rooms will shut, along with the event spaces and the Palm Court restaurant, whose afternoon tea has run for more than a century. The exact scope of the work has not been disclosed, and Fairmont says the full detail remains under review.
The company put the closure down in part to the significant intrusion to operations the restoration will create. The scope and complexity of the facade works will demand detailed planning with relevant stakeholders, alongside compliance with historic preservation requirements.
What that means for the 181 private condos inside the building is not yet clear. Fairmont did not say whether residents would have to leave during the work. One of those apartments was listed for $8 million a few years ago.
The 18-storey building has stood on Fifth Avenue since 1907, at the southeast corner of Central Park, and will spend years behind scaffolding rather than serving its celebrated tea. The architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh designed it, and the hotel is part of Accor's Fairmont Hotels & Resorts brand.
A building under landmark protection
Understanding the unique place in New York City's architectural heritage and cultural history it holds, the Plaza is advancing plans for repair to its landmark-protected facade, the operator said in a statement. Careful consideration is being given to preservation requirements and the building's long-term care.
The safety of guests, employees and the wider community also factors into the project, Fairmont added. The restoration reflects the complexity of maintaining a property of such architectural and historical significance.
Guests who had hoped for tea are not the only people affected. The Hotel & Gaming Trades Council, the union representing 378 staff at the Plaza, will try to place workers in other jobs while the rooms are empty.
The hotel has carried plenty of cultural weight from the outset. The Beatles stayed there, as did Christian Dior, and the building has appeared on screen in The Way We Were, the 2013 Great Gatsby and Eloise at the Plaza.
Not the first transformation
This is not the property's first reworking. Most recently, in 2005, the icon was partly converted into condominiums, which produced the residences whose fate is now in question during the restoration.
The city around it has been resetting too. Row NYC reopened earlier this year after substantial renovations, as did the Crowne Plaza Manhattan Times Square, and The Chambers Hotel New York in Midtown returned in June as a fully independent boutique hotel.
Representatives for the Plaza declined to comment beyond the release. The hotel has not said whether the project could extend beyond its 2031 target, nor what a restored facade will cost or look like in the end.
The Palm Court has served afternoon tea for more than 100 years, a ritual now paused with no date set for its return. The event rooms that hosted the hotel's gatherings close in January alongside it.
The reopening is years away, and Fairmont has framed the work as an investment in the long term. Preservation requirements, rather than speed, will set the pace, and the company has given no commitment beyond the four-year figure.
The clearest near-term certainty is January, when the doors close. After that, the next fixed point is a reopening around 2031, and the operator has offered no guarantee the project will not extend beyond it.
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Image: The Plaza Hotel
