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Sheraton Buenos Aires Hotel & Convention Center (originally Hostal Santa María de los Buenos Aires) is a five-star hotel located in the District of Retiro, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Overview
A municipal ordinance enacted in 1967 commissioned the Municipal Department of Architecture and Urbanism (MCBA) to create the Catalinas Norte office park, touching off an important urban redevelopment effort in what had been a derelict annex of the Port of Buenos Aires. The northernmost parcel in the district, a 26,700 m² (287,000 ft²) lot, was sold by MCBA to local developer Kokourek S.A. on October 22, 1968, and plans were approved for the development of the first Sheraton Hotel in Argentina.
Ground was broken on the project by Mayor Manuel Iricíbar on June 26, 1969, and the hotel was inaugurated as the Hostal Santa María de los Buenos Aires on August 24, 1972. The building, one of the first Argentine hotels built in the International style, was designed by SEPRA architects Santiago Sánchez Elía, Federico Peralta Ramos, and Alfredo Agostini; SEPRA would subsequently design numerous other high-rises in the district, and became one of the leading architectural firms in Argentina.
The original project featured an indoor shopping center, promenade, gardens, and an auditorium with capacity for 230 people. A convention center, restaurants, and bars were placed along the first floor promenade, and the hotel also featured terraces, two tennis courts, an outdoor swimming pool, banquet hall, and other amenities, including an extensive underground parking lot and a rooftop restaurant with terraces and a view of the Río de la Plata. The hotel originally housed 24 stories, and 739 rooms, with 33 suites located at either end of the building.
The building saw a significant expansion with the 1996 addition of another hotel, the Park Tower, a Luxury Collection Hotel. Featuring 181 luxury rooms and suites, the 23-story, 91 m (299 ft)part of the Starwood Hotels The Luxury Collection, enhanced its reputation as the premier business accommodation in Argentina. Also in this expansion, the Sheraton Buenos Aires Hotel & Convention Center doubled its convention capacity to 2,000 with the opening of the new Convention Center in March 1996, and a Neptune Pool & Fitness Center was completed in December. The combined facilities became the single largest hotel complex in Latin America,
Among the first notable guests following these additions were international Korean businessman Sun Myung Moon and former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who were on hand in November, 1996, to inaugurate Tiempos del Mundo (a News World Communications newsdaily published until 2007).