Tall & Urban News

A new hotel in the center of Madrid, Riu Plaza España in the Plaza de España, will have 585 rooms, a rooftop with 360 degree views, and a 3,000 square meters of commercial space, for a total of 5,000 square meters of space.

The Spanish hotel chain Riu is completing the renovation of the Edificio España building. The renovation is expected to be completed between spring and summer of 2019. The hotel is accepting reservations from September 1st.

This will be Riu’s first urban hotel in Spain, and it will be built in a 27-story skyscraper inaugurated in 1953, which has been closed for the past 12 years.

Previous plans to renovate the building were put on hold by Santander Bank in the wake of the global recession of 2008. Later, the Chinese group Wanda acquired the building, with a plan to demolish and rebuild it, but this plan was stopped by the current municipal government of Madrid.

With the intermediation of the Baraka Group, the property was sold to Riu, which undertook work to preserve the architectural heritage and protected elements of the building, such as the original elevator buttons and bas-reliefs.

The decoration of the interior hearkens to the Madrid of the ’30s and ’50s, and will evoke Fifth Avenue, New York.

According to the commercial director of Riu Plaza España, Gonzalo Baselga, the objective of the company is to attract leisure, conference and business guests in equal proportion.

The roof will be open to all who want to enjoy the views of the capital of Spain, and a glass walkway will allow the public to travel around the perimeter of the building.

For more on this story visit DiarioHispaniola.