The Plaza Hotel is shutting its doors for four years starting in January 2027, a closure that will take the landmark off Central Park South and Fifth Avenue out of commission for a sweeping restoration of its 18-story facade. The announcement comes from Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, which operates the property, though the company has not disclosed the cost or detailed scope of the work.
A Landmark With a History of Facelifts
The closure, first reported by The New York Times, marks the latest chapter for a building that underwent a major restoration and conversion earlier this century. The Plaza opened on October 1, 1907, after 27 months of construction that cost $12.5 million, according to a timeline published by The Plaza. It was designed by architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, who also designed the Dakota on Central Park West, and the city designated the hotel a landmark in 1969, per the same timeline.
Fairmont told the Times that the restoration plan reflects the complexity of maintaining a property of architectural and historical significance, and that facade work requires detailed planning and coordination with relevant stakeholders. The company did not provide details of the restoration work or its cost. Today's Plaza contains 282 hotel rooms, the Times reports — though the condominium count is murkier, with the paper citing 181 units while a separate account from Architects + Artisans puts the number at 165 following an earlier conversion from 800 original rooms.
The 2008 Restoration Set the Template
This won't be the Plaza's first extended closure. The hotel shut its doors in 2005 for an extensive lobby-to-roof restoration under Elad Properties and reopened in 2008 after a $450 million overhaul, according to the hotel's own timeline. After the hotel reopened, an exterior facelift tackled terracotta ornaments and marble and limestone sculpted elements that had become eroded and deteriorated, the same Architects + Artisans account notes. Severely deteriorated balusters were replaced using custom molds cast from the original pieces.
That earlier work also adapted the building for residential use while preserving a smaller-scale hotel operation, per a project summary from Lerch Bates, which described crews remediating and in some cases replacing exterior facade elements to preserve the architecture while enhancing building performance. The Plaza was partly converted into condominiums in the early 2000s, part of a long and volatile ownership history that includes at least half a dozen owners. Donald J. Trump acquired the hotel in 1988 for $390 million and took it into bankruptcy in the 1990s, according to the hotel's timeline.
Why Towers This Old Need Constant Attention
New York City requires owners of buildings taller than six stories to have their exterior walls and appurtenances inspected every five years, with a technical facade report filed electronically through DOB NOW: Safety, according to the NYC Department of Buildings. Nearly 16,000 structures across the city fall under that compliance requirement, the department says.
Architecture critic Paul Goldberger wrote in 1982 that the Plaza was designed in a style generally described as French Renaissance but essentially New York eclectic, and described the building as crucial to the city's architectural heritage. That assessment echoes how the Plaza is still regarded today, as an important part of New York's architectural heritage more broadly.
A Familiar Pattern Among New York's Grand Hotels
The Plaza's coming hiatus follows a similar, if longer, shutdown at another Manhattan icon. The Waldorf Astoria closed for renovations in 2017 and did not reopen for almost eight years, returning this past year after billions of dollars in work, according to the Times. Whether the Plaza's four-year timeline holds, and what guests, condo owners and employees should expect once scaffolding goes up in January 2027, are questions Fairmont has yet to answer publicly.
