JFK Airport's TWA Hotel Opens, Transforming A Historic Terminal

QUEENS, NY — The TWA Hotel at JFK International Airport opened Wednesday in the former Trans World Airlines terminal, which has been closed to the public for nearly two decades.

The terminal, designed by architect Eero Saarinen in 1962, is now the centerpiece for a 512-room hotel complex on airport grounds.

The terminal building itself will house the hotel's lobby, a cocktail bar inside a historic aircraft and dining options, like Paris Café by world-renowned chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten.

The LEED-certified hotel will also have 50,000 square feet of event space, a food hall with vendors like Halal Guys and a rooftop infinity pool with views of the airport runways, according to Curbed.

Developer MCR and MORSE Development spent $265 million on constructing the hotel, aided by more than $41 million in federal and state tax credits for rehabilitating vacant, underutilized historic buildings.

"We want our guests and visitors to fully engage with both the history of this building and the remarkable story of TWA," Tyler Morse, CEO of MCR and MORSE Development, has said.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson were among those celebrating the hotel's grand opening Wednesday.

Cuomo announced the hotel plans in 2016, after the Port Authority oversaw a $20 million modernization of the landmarked terminal to attract interest from private developers.

"The TWA building was ahead of its time, and it represented New York's vision and creativity and boldness and outside-the-box thinking," Cuomo said. "This rebirth of the TWA Hotel says we haven't lost our imagination, our boldness, our creativity, our daring - and we are still one step ahead of everyone else."

Cuomo in 2017 introduced a $13 billion plan to overhaul JFK Airport by unifying its eight terminal sites and modernizing infrastructure.

The first new gates are due to open in 2023, and the governor's office says the project will finish in 2025.