Pummeled by the Pandemic, Hotel Owners Get Creative With Their Space

Like many hotels pummeled by the pandemic, the InterContinental Times Square is trying to hang on.

After tourists stopped arriving this spring, the 607-room property transformed into housing for doctors and nurses treating coronavirus patients. When they checked out, the high-rise began offering blocks of rooms as office space. And with its reopening this month, the InterContinental will again play office landlord, this time on a suite-by-suite basis.

“We’re trying to be creative,” said Gul Turkmenoglu, the general manager, “and hope our ideas take off.”

Across the country, as the hospitality industry grapples with a severe downturn, hotels have been trying to reinvent themselves — as schools, emergency housing, wedding halls or homeless shelters — even as the new uses may come up short on revenue.

There are signs of financial distress. In New York, 44 hotel loans backed by bonds totaling $1.2 billion are delinquent, according to September data from Trepp, an analytics firm. In second place was Houston, with 39 delinquent loans at $682 million, followed by Chicago with 29 at $990 million.