Hotel Glória
The Hotel Glória was a grand hotel in the Glória neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was built by entrepreneur Rocha Miranda for the International Exhibition of 1922 to commemorate the centennial of Brazil's independence. It opened on August 15, 1922. The hotel was designed by Joseph Gire, who also designed the Copacabana Palace. It was reportedly the first reinforced concrete building to be built in South America and was erected with the aid of German engineers.
| Hotel Glória | |
|---|---|
 | |
  Location within Rio de Janeiro | |
| General information | |
| Location | Glória, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Coordinates | 22°55′21″S 43°10′22″W |
| Opening | 1922 |
| Closed | 2008 |
| Other information | |
| Number of rooms | 630 |
Originally the hotel had a casino (closed in 1946, when gambling was prohibited in Brazil), a theatre, ballrooms, recreation areas, and only about 280 rooms but was later expanded to about 630.[1] Due to its proximity to the financial and political centre of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Hotel Glória always harbored great movie stars, singers, politicians, and heads of state.
Hotel Glória was built with 180 rooms. It was expanded by 100 rooms with a wing to the southwest, and a 400-room addition was added at an unknown date. The hotel has a reinforced concrete skeleton, and each room had a bathroom and a telephone. It was later furnished with a swimming pool, a steam sauna, an automatic phone billing system, a meeting room and equipment for video-conferences, and a heliport.
In 2008, the hotel was bought by Brazilian entrepreneur Eike Batista and closed for a complete restoration and refurbishment, which started in 2009. In 2013, however, Batista's EBX Group went bankrupt and the renovation was stopped.[2] In 2014, Batista sold the hotel to Swiss investment fund Acron AG for 500 million Brazilian reais (approximately U.S.$ 210 million at the time), but the deal was undone in early 2016.[3] Batista then sold the hotel to Mubadala Development Company, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, for an undisclosed sum.[4]
As of early 2018, however, renovation works have not resumed and the building is still derelict.
References
- Blore, Shawn; Vries, Alexandra de (11 April 2008). Frommer's Portable Rio de Janeiro. John Wiley and Sons. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-470-25713-5. Retrieved 28 February 2011.
- Pennafort, Roberta (2017-03-18). "Hotel Glória vive era de abandono pós-Eike" [Hotel Glória lives a post-Eike abandonment era]. O Estado de S. Paulo (in Portuguese). Retrieved 2018-02-13.
- Villas Bôas, Bruno (2016-01-06). "Fundo suíço desiste de comprar de Eike Batista o hotel Glória, no Rio" [Swiss fund gives up buying Rio's Hotel Glória from Eike Batista]. Folha de S. Paulo (in Portuguese). Retrieved 2018-02-13.
- Villas Bôas, Bruno (2016-01-19). "Fundo árabe compra hotel Glória de Eike Batista, no Rio de Janeiro" [Arab fund buys Hotel Glória from Eike Batista in Rio de Janeiro]. Folha de S. Paulo (in Portuguese). Retrieved 2018-02-13.