One of the most anticipated U.S. hotel openings of 2019 has to be the TWA Hotel at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The airport’s first on-campus hotel will debut next spring in the iconic former TWA Flight Center, which was originally designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen in 1962.
The hotel will open in Eero Saarinen's iconic TWA Flight Center at JFK next year.MCR
The hotel will comprise 512 guestrooms including 44 suites, a 200,000-square-foot lobby (the world’s largest), a museum devoted to TWA and the Jet Age, and a stunning 10,000-square-foot rooftop deck and pool where guests can watch planes taking off and landing. Among the six restaurants and eight bars, there will be one constructed from a rare, refurbished Lockheed Constellation “Connie” jet.
Room reservations do not open until December, but the hotel has just announced that it has started accepting bookings for its event spaces and outdoor terraces. In all, the hotel will have 50,000 square feet of events space, including 45 rooms and five hospitality suites that can accommodate up to 1,600 guests total.
The Starstream Ballroom will be the hotel's largest events space.MCR
The largest will be the Starstream Ballroom, named after TWA’s first jet service. Outside is a pre-function space decorated with Saarinen-designed Knoll furniture. The Starstream Ballroom also has six private skyboxes overlooking it for meetings that feel like a scene out of Mad Men, just with high-speed teleconferencing and audio-visual equipment integrated, that is.
The smaller Flight Center Ballroom is off one of the hotel’s main wings and will have views of the rest of the historic structure and has authentic penny-tiled flooring to set the swanky tone for personal events such as weddings. All the spaces have an aesthetic that speaks to the glamour and prestige of the golden age of travel.
The pre-function space will be decorated with Saarinen Knoll chairs.MCR
“There is something quite special about hosting events at the TWA Hotel,” said Tyler Morse, CEO of MCR and MORSE Development, the hotel-operating company overseeing the project. “We are restoring one of the most important buildings in America, the TWA Flight Center, and event attendees will be greeted by the vibrant spirit of 1962, the year the Flight Center opened, along with modern amenities that make this destination unique.”
The hotel has been under construction since 2016, and though details are still scant, Morse Development has released some information on the guestrooms, which will include amenities like Hollywood-style vanities, custom-built minibars, and picture-perfect views of the airline’s runways…which guests can view through sound-proofed seven-layer glass that will minimize the roar of those jet engines outside.
One of the Starstream Ballroom's Skyboxes.MCR
The hotel will be connected to the JetBlue Terminal 5 at JFK through Saarinen’s innovative “flight tube” corridors, and is a two-minute walk to Terminal 4, where Delta and 30 other international carriers operate. It is also just a short AirTrain ride to the other terminals, or to connect to public transportation that can take guests into New York City.
MCR is the seventh-largest hotel owner-operator in the U.S., with 85 hotels throughout the country in 67 cities. Their other properties include Manhattan’s High Line Hotel and the Miami International Airport Hotel as well as a host of budget- and business-friendly properties in the Courtyard by Marriott, Hampton Inn, Hilton Garden Inn and Residence Inn by Marriott families, among others.