Following its acquisition of the historic Lafayette Building located in the Old City section of Philadelphia, Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, LLC hired Gensler to transform the 11-story building into a 271-room boutique hotel featuring a chef-driven, three level restaurant and bar, 13,000-square-feet of ballroom and meeting space and a dynamic indoor-outdoor rooftop lounge. Originally built in 1906 across from Independence Hall, Gensler used the building’s existing exterior façade as a canvas to achieve a thoughtful rework that melds the original character of the building with Kimpton’s high-end, luxurious standards. Following the site’s two-year transformation, Hotel Monaco was named a four-star, LEED® Gold certified boutique hotel, proving a tremendous success story for adaptive re-use and historic building preservation.