The US and Pakistan governments have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the renovation of New York City’s historic Roosevelt Hotel, which has been vacant since June after operating for three years as a migrant center.
The agreement was negotiated by US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, a former real estate developer, and executed by the General Services Administration. According to a statement posted on X by Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance, the MoU “establishes a structured, time-bound framework for joint evaluation of the technical, commercial, and economic parameters of cooperation, reflecting a shared commitment to transparent, disciplined, and mutually beneficial progress.”
The hotel is owned by Pakistan International Airlines, in which the government of Pakistan has a minority stake. The US government has no ownership stake in the hotel, and the budget and timeline for hotel’s renovation was not announced.
The Roosevelt opened in 1924 and has more than 1,000 rooms. At its peak, it was one of the city’s great hotels and gained national prominence with its New Year’s Eve radio broadcasts starring the in-house band led by Guy Lombardo.
Photo by Billy Hathorn / Wikimedia Commons
