Cedar Rapids Crowne Plaza Hotel is closing

Cedar Rapids' Crowne Plaza Hotel will close at the end of February. Sunday afternoon, managers hosted a meeting to tell all 130 employees they needed to find a new job.

The closure is part of the city's plan to remodel and reinvent the hotel and convention center. The city will take control of the hotel immediately after it closes. Then, construction will begin on the new convention center complex and the hotel.

“We just wanted to assure the employees, before it came out in the public, that we're going to help them. We're going to try to take care of them and help them find future employment,” Deb Stout, The Crowne Plaza Hotel's General Manager, said.

Hotel employees have seen this day coming for years, but learning the hotel will close still came as a shock.

“They went through the bad times when their paychecks were bouncing a few years ago. So, there's very much a team atmosphere. Everybody relies on everybody else,” Stout said.

When the city finishes the new convention complex, many of the staff have said they'd like to return to work at the renovated hotel.

“That's their mindset…find something to do for the next couple of years or year and a half, however long it takes, and come back when it's done,” Stout said.

In the meantime, events scheduled after late February will have to move elsewhere.

“We're going to work with them and some of the other hotels to help relocate,” Stout said.

Rescheduling events will take some time, but the staff promises to do everything possible to ease customer's concerns. On Monday morning, staff members will begin calling every affected client.

The hotel recently had to cancel its Thanksgiving Brunch & Dinner because not enough people signed up for it.