Manzana de Gomez

The Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski La Habana is a luxury hotel in Havana, Cuba. It is located in the historic Manzana de Gómez (Gómez Block) building, an early-20th-century building that was originally Cuba's first shopping mall.

History

The structure was built by José Gómez-Mena Vila from 1894 to 1917 as the first European-style shopping arcade in Cuba. The Manzana de Gómez was the first entire city block built in Cuba in the beginning of the 20th century completely for commercial use, with two inner diagonal streets that cross the building in all directions integrating the pedestrian circulation with the outer fabric. It is bounded by Neptuno, San Rafael, Zulueta and Monserrate streets.

The structure was gutted and converted to a 246-room hotel by the Gaviota Group, an arm of the Cuban military. The hotel, operated by Kempinski Hotels, opened for business in May 2017 and celebrated its grand opening in June 2017. The hotel features a ground floor shopping mall, with retail franchises including Versace, Giorgio Armani, Lacoste and Montblanc, harking back to the building's origins.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski La Habana" and modified on June 2, 2020 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.