Hotel Rooms to Condos in Manhattan

Today marks the end of an era for the famous Plaza Hotel, situated on the southern edge of Central Park in Manhattan. The 805 room boutique hotel will close today and will reopen as a mostly owned-occupied condominium building. "The market for condominiums at this particular location is more favorable [than] for hotel rooms," said a spokesman for Elad Properties, the Plaza's new owner. "For there to be a Plaza, you have to have a product that you can market." The conversion follows a trend in the city that has resulted in the closure of about 3,000 hotel rooms this year. "We can't allow the hotel industry to dismantle itself because of a blip on the real estate market," said Peter Ward, president of the Hotel and Motel Trades Council Local 6, which includes the Plaza's 900 employees. Most new hotels to Mahattan these days are mid-range establishments and not the high-end, luxury hotels of the Plaza's famed era.

Thanks to Peter Buryk