“We want to begin renovating the ten conference rooms on the first floor on December 15 and reopen then on March 1, and plan to start renovating the rooms at the end of next year, which will be done in several phases. The hotel will stay open for business,” Alexandra Copos, daughter of businessman George Copos, who took the reins of ANA Hotels earlier this year, told ZF.
The renovation process will be completed in two or three years, Alexandra Copos added.
Asked about where the money for the investment would come, she said it would be partly self-funded and partly funded by bank loans. ANA Hotels, a company that operates several hotels throughout Romania, has been working with BRD as its banking partner since taking over the hotel in 2005.
“We’ve been working on two model rooms using the designs of an architect in London for eighteen months now. We will completely revamp the rooms from carpets, furniture to bathrooms.”
The hotel has previously remodeled the reception and the ground floor.
The hotel located near another Bucharest landmark, the Romanian Athenaeum, was designed by French architect Teophile Bradeau and built in 1914.
The hotel joined the Hilton Worldwide international chain in 1997. Businessman George Copos bought Athenée Palace in 2005, after having bought the former Flora (now Crowne Plaza) in 1996 and Europa Hotel on the Romanian seaside in 2001.
ANA Hotels, which owns Athenée Palace Hilton and Crowne Plaza in Bucharest, as well as three hotels in mountain areas and two on the Black Sea Coast ended 2013 with almost 40 million leu (EUR9 million) losses, compared with only EUR200,000 in the previous year, while revenue was flat at RON110 million, according to Finance Ministry data.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)