The 1,055-room Park Central Hotel in New York is undergoing a $60 million restoration. The 1928 hotel will reopen in March 1999 after a total redo. It will include an executive club lounge, 250 executive club rooms, and a Wellness Center. All executive club rooms will include a personal fax machine and a safe large enough for a laptop, while all renovated rooms will have two-line phones, data ports, irons, and ironing boards. Plumbing and electrical systems are being replaced and the building's facade, with original animal friezes, is being restored.
Orient-Express Hotels' 440-room Charleston Place hotel in Charleston, S.C., is redoing its health and fitness facilities as well as its entryway. The Spa at Charleston Place will get a new swimming pool and new treatment rooms. The Health Club will be transformed into a fully equipped gym and Day Spa, and the hotel's entrance will be redone with an elegant porte-cochere, a fountain, and four nine-foot-high bronze horses.
The Southampton Inn in Long Island's renowned Hamptons region is wrapping up a $5 million renovation that redesigned and expanded its more than 5,000 square feet of meeting space. The 90-room inn now features two new boardrooms for up to a dozen attendees; two high-tech conference rooms that can seat up to 60, classroom-style; and a 2,000-square-foot ballroom with adjacent outdoor garden. The inn's "country-casual" guest rooms also were recently remodeled.
Lakeway Inn, managed by Dolce International in Austin, Texas, has begun a $20 million expansion to double its size by next July. A new building overlooking Lake Travis will be the resort's centerpiece, expanding the property to 240 guest rooms and more than 20,000 square feet of meeting space.
International Conference Resorts has been named to manage the 265-room Marquis Resort in Palm Springs, Calif., bringing ICR's conference resort portfolio to eight. The conference resort offers more than 40,000 square feet of meeting space.