The Ponce Plaza Hotel & Casino, formerly Ponce Ramada Hotel and Ponce Plaza Ramada Hotel, is a five-story hotel in

Ponce, Puerto Rico Ponce (, , , ) is both a city and a municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government. Ponce, Puerto Rico's most populated city outside the San Juan metropolitan area, was founded on 12 August 1 ...

. The hotel opened in the summer of 2009 and is known for the historic value of its structure: its main entrance is a historic colonial structure known as ''"Casa Saurí"'' (Saurí House). In February 2013, the hotel expanded its facilities to include a

casino A casino is a facility for certain types of gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertai ...

, a

cocktail lounge Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (un ...

, and a 4-story, 200-car

parking garage A multistorey car park (British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a build ...

. On 1 July 2014, the owners left the

Ramada Ramada is a large American multinational hotel chain owned by Wyndham Hotels and Resorts. As of December 31, 2018, it operates 811 hotels with 114,614 rooms across 63 countries under the Ramada brand. Name The ''Ramada'' name derives from t ...

namesake franchise and renamed the hotel Ponce Plaza Hotel & Casino.

Location and features

The hotel is located in the Ponce Historic Zone. It has two major buildings. The first building facing

Plaza Muñoz Rivera Plaza Muñoz Rivera, formally Plaza Luis Muñoz Rivera, is the smaller of the two plazas at Plaza Las Delicias in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico. It is located on the north side of Plaza Las Delicias, north of the larger southern Plaza Degetau ...

is the historic Casa Saurí structure and it houses six colonial-style rooms plus the hotel's Lola Eclectic Cuisine restaurant. The rear building located on the southeast corner of Calle Reina and Calle Mendez Vigo is a modern four-story structure housing 64 additional guest rooms as well as an indoor

on the first floor and a

fitness center A health club (also known as a fitness club, fitness center, health spa, and commonly referred to as a gym) is a place that houses exercise equipment for the purpose of physical exercise. In recent years, the number of fitness and health ser ...

on the fourth floor. There is also an outdoor

swimming pool A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming or other leisure activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built ...

Design

The hotel was designed in 2006-2009 by architects Fernando Bonnín and Javier Bonnín of Ponce, Puerto Rico.

History

The historic 1882 Casa Saurí-Rubert was meticulously rebuilt to accommodate the hotel." On the first floor of this Casa Saurí building the hotel now houses its

front desk A receptionist is an Employment, employee taking an office or Business administration, administrative support position. The work is usually performed in a waiting room, waiting area such as a Lobby (room), lobby or front office desk of an organ ...

, lobby, conference room/breakfast room, and restaurant. The second floor accommodates six colonial-style guest rooms. These six rooms are all designed to follow 19th century historic themes. The hotel was built with incentives under Law 212 of the Commonwealth. Félix Sauri y Vivas was a Ponce businessman and

hacienda An ''hacienda'' ( or ; or ) is an estate (or ''finca''), similar to a Roman ''latifundium'', in Spain and the former Spanish Empire. With origins in Andalusia, ''haciendas'' were variously plantations (perhaps including animals or orchards), ...

holder and mayor of Ponce in 1895. Casa Sauri is said to be the third oldest residence still standing in Ponce.

Re-construction

Munoz Holdings invested $15 million in the restoration and development of the original Casa Sauri property and development of the hotel's modern 5-story tower.

Expansion

In August 2011, hotel owners announced plans to enlarge the hotel with the addition of a

, a large conference room, a second restaurant, and 150 additional parking spaces. The plans called for the development of the property immediately to the south of the current historic Casa Saurí, a property which also faces Plaza Muñoz Rivera. The new casino would boast 9,500 square feet of space, and the new conference rooms would be able to accommodate 200 people in a space of 6,000 square feet. The planned parking garage opened two years later, in 2013. The casino opened in February 2013, together with the 4-story, 200-car

.''Estrenan expansión en Ramada Ponce.''
Reinaldo Millán. La Perla del Sur. Ponce, Puerto Rico. 27 February 2013. Year 31. Issue 1526. Page 4. Retrieved 27 February 2013.

References

External links

Photo of Casa Sauri (now (2020), Ponce Plaza Hotel & Casino) during the 1910s when it housed ''Liceo Ponceño,'' Puerto Rico's first girls-only school. Liceo Ponceño occupied the structure until the 1950s. (See Luis Fortuño Janeiro. ''Album Histórico de Ponce (1692-1963).'' Page 374. Ponce, Puerto Rico: Imprenta Fortuño. 1963.) Retrieved 11 July 2020.)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ponce Plaza Hotel and Casino Hotels in Ponce, Puerto Rico Houses in Puerto Rico Casinos in Puerto Rico Houses completed in 1882 Hotels established in 2009 2009 establishments in Puerto Rico Companies based in Ponce, Puerto Rico 1882 establishments in Puerto Rico