New York’s Roosevelt Hotel may make way for new skyscraper

Pakistan is considering options for the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan as part of the South Asian nation’s efforts to meet its commitments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

One of the options is to raze the storied landmark and build a skyscraper in its place, said Mr Muhammad Ali, adviser on privatisation to the Pakistani prime minister.

The government is keen on a joint venture where Pakistan will contribute the land and the partner will bring in the equity, he told Bloomberg in Islamabad.

The other option is to retain the hotel if it makes economic sense, he said.

Once a historic hotel owned by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), it closed during the Covid-19 pandemic, briefly housed migrants, and has since been shuttered.

“We will have clarity on this in the next few months after finalisation of the JV (joint venture) partner and market sounding,” Mr Ali said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government is making its most ambitious effort in years to restructure or sell state-owned companies, as committed to the IMF under the terms of a US$7 billion (S$9 billion) loan agreement.

The first asset to be sold could be PIA, which has been surviving on periodic bailouts that the government can no longer afford. The adviser is hopeful that the national carrier will be sold by November.

He said the groups interested in buying PIA are among the largest business groups in the country and have the capacity to run it. Mr Ali estimated that an investment of about half a billion US dollars would be needed to turn the airline around.

Pakistan is in the process of appointing advisers for the hotel transaction, dubbed by some as “the new Ellis Island” for its historical role as a migrant intake point.

The government will finalise a new adviser later in October after bids from seven groups, including Citigroup, CBRE Group and Savills. BLOOMBERG