Buckingham Hotel to close for renovations

The new owners of the Buckingham Hotel are closing down the storied, 100-room property at 101 West 57th Street at the end of the month for a major, two-year-long renovation project, Crain’s reported. All 33 employees will be laid off. As The Real Deal first reported,
the hotel, which has housed cultural icons including tenor Giovanni Martinelli and painter Georgia O’Keefe in its 82-year history, changed hands in July when a partnership including Equinox founder Danny Errico sold it for $60 million to Hartford, Conn.-based UBS Realty Investors. Current hotel manager Lisa Grossberg wouldn’t delve into any details on the renovation, except to say that the Buckingham would eventually reopen as a hotel. “It’s obvious that the [current owner] is going upscale,” speculated Tom McConnell, senior managing director of Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick Goldman, who was marketing the hotel on Errico’s behalf last summer. “I’m sure they’ll turn it in a four-star hotel.” [Crain’s]