Port Authority OKs plan for JFK hotel in disused TWA building

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has decided to allow a partnership between JetBlue and MCR Development to remake the former TWA terminal at JFK into the only hotel on airport property, according to a report from Crains New York .

“First-class hotels are a mark of a 21st-century airport, and JFK and LaGuardia are among the very few major airports without this amenity,” Joe Sitt, chairman of the airport advocacy group Global Gateway Alliance, said in a statement referenced by Crains.

The report stated that JetBlue has already developed one hotel in Orlando that is for use only by its employees. The JFK project will be its first hotel open to the public.

Currently, the former TWA terminal is disused but is directly adjacent to JetBlue’s JFK facility. JetBlue and MCR plan to refurbish the building to become the hotel’s main entrance while building hotel rooms from the ground up, Crains reported.

“We applaud the Port Authority for moving ahead with plans to develop the iconic TWA Flight Center because it’s past time for a smart use for the building and for an on-airport hotel available to millions of JFK passengers,” Sitt’s statement continued in the article.

The hotel is speculated to have 505 rooms, 40,000 square feet of common areas, as many as eight eateries and an observation deck, with the old terminal’s interior serving as a lobby, the report claimed before acknowledging that the vast majority of the world’s major airports have hotels on their grounds.