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HotelChatter Question: What Happened to Hotel Monaco New Orleans?

March 9, 2007 at 2:18 PM | 2 Comments

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I noticed that the Monaco New Orleans, which used to be part of Kimpton, is no longer a Monaco/Kimpton Hotel. Any idea what became of it? Pre-Katrina, it was a great place, a former Masonic Temple just outside the French Quarter, beautiful lobby and public spaces, including a cozy lounge, spacious rooms.

If you happen to know, would be great to hear.

Indeed we just checked the Kimpton Hotels web site and found no mention of the Hotel Monaco NoLa anywhere. Although, there were several press releases about the new properties Kimpton has acquired. We are just speculating here, but often a hotel brand like Kimpton does not outright own the property that the hotel is on. Instead they sign a management contract with the property's owner for a certain amount of years. For whatever reason, (money, creative differences, Katrina) this contract was probably not renewed.

As for what's become of the property, we are still trying to track that down. Judging from this Flickr photo, the hotel has been closed since at least September 2006. And one of our spies in New Orleans says the hotel was under renovations a few weeks ago. It's also near the Harrah's casino so maybe the new building will tie into that.

Still, since we have no definitive answers, we put in a call to the New Orleans tourism board and reached out to some Kimpton folks. We'll update you when we have the answer.

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