Crowne Plaza by IHG has opened Crowne Plaza Manhattan Times Square, its new Americas flagship, marking a significant milestone in the brand's ongoing estate transformation. The 22-story, 685-room property sits steps from Rockefeller Center and the Broadway Theater District, positioning it squarely at the intersection of business and leisure travel — the segment the brand calls "blended travel."

The F&B Offering

Food and beverage is central to the property's identity. Fifty-First Street Social, the hotel's signature all-day dining destination and bar, is designed to flex across dayparts — from pre-meeting breakfasts to evening cocktails — mirroring what the brand describes as the rhythm of the city. A 24/7 Marketplace rounds out the grab-and-go tier, catering to guests who need speed without sacrificing quality. For hospitality operators watching how full-service hotels compete on F&B, the programming here is deliberate: Weekly Socials unite hotel guests and neighborhood locals through destination-inspired food-and-beverage menus, while Daily Rituals layer in wellness-adjacent touches — morning and evening offerings designed to aid recovery and sleep — that have become a rising expectation among premium travelers. This kind of curated, experience-driven F&B strategy reflects a broader shift in hotel food and beverage programming away from purely transactional dining toward community-building venues that drive ancillary revenue.

Scale and Ownership

The property was developed by Al Rayyan Tourism Investment Company (ARTIC), a Qatar-based hospitality investment firm and subsidiary of Al Faisal Holding, and is managed by Highgate, widely regarded as New York City's largest hotel owner-operator. The building itself carries genuine historical weight, having been originally constructed for the 1964 New York World's Fair before undergoing its current transformation. Locally inspired artwork and large-scale murals by Brazilian-born, Atlanta-based artist Tiago Magro were commissioned to anchor the property's sense of place.

For meetings and events professionals, the hotel offers flexible small-group meeting spaces and a dedicated Meetings & Events Concierge service. The Studio provides an intimate setting for focused collaboration near the lobby. Upper floors house the Manhattan Level, a tier of suites and guestrooms with skyline views, while the 22nd-floor Broadway Suite — a penthouse with a private terrace — targets milestone events and high-value bookings.

Brand Growth Context

The Times Square opening is part of a broader expansion play for Crowne Plaza. With more than 400 hotels open globally and a pipeline of nearly 150 additional properties, the brand projects adding more than 36,000 rooms in the coming years — a portfolio increase of more than 35 percent. IHG notes that half of Crowne Plaza's global estate is now new or recently renovated, signaling that the brand's repositioning around the blended-travel segment is well underway rather than aspirational.

Ginger Taggart, Vice President of Brand Management for Global Premium Brands at IHG Hotels & Resorts, framed the opening as a proof-of-concept for the brand's next growth chapter. "Every aspect of the traveler experience has been thoughtfully developed to meet the needs of today's blended traveler," she said, citing flexible social spaces and elevated food and beverage as the twin pillars of that vision. Industry observers tracking premium hotel development trends will note that the blended-travel positioning — merging business, leisure, and personal time within a single trip — has become a dominant framework across the upper-midscale and premium tiers as operators compete for the same high-frequency, high-spend guest.

Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.