Le Meridien’s Cumberland Hotel at Marble Arch has temporarily closed to complete the final stage of its £90m re-development work.

The temporary closure will allow installation of new lifts as well as completing work on eight floors of bedrooms and building a new conference centre and meeting rooms.

The hotel will be relaunched as a four-star deluxe hotel in the summer 2004 – with 1,020 redesigned bedrooms, a ‘futuristic’ lobby, three bars, a brasserie, espresso bar and fine dining restaurant and a conference centre with 28 meeting rooms and separate conference and banqueting operation for 1,200 delegates.

The hotel is in discussion with the 170 employees at the Cumberland regarding securing them work in other hotels in London.