Canadian hotel brand Sutton Place will return to Toronto this month after an 11-year absence from the city's hospitality scene.

The hotel chain has announced that the King Blue Hotel Toronto at the corner of King Street West and Blue Jays Way will be rebranded as The Sutton Place Hotel Toronto later in November, reintroducing the brand to the city for the first time since the former Sutton Place closed in 2012.

The former Sutton Place Hotel at Bay and Wellesley was constructed in 1967 and quickly became a hotspot for celebrity sightings. It served as the hotel of choice for TIFF attendees — including a 2008 stint as the festival's host location — until its importance declined during the onslaught of new luxury hotels constructed in the 2000s and 2010s.

The hotel closed its doors on June 15, 2012, 45 years after it first opened.

Three years later, the former hotel building was emptied of its contents, gutted and vertically expanded into a new condo development known as The Britt Condos, growing from 33 to 41 storeys and opening in 2019 — almost entirely unrecognizable from the hotel that came before.

That same year Sutton Place's replacement condo opened, the King Blue Hotel Toronto was completed within the base of another condo development, King Blue Condos, just over two kilometres to the southwest.

While the King Blue Hotel location is only a few years old, Sutton Place has invested in major renovations in advance of the rebranded hotel's reopening, upgrading the property to meet the celebrity standard established by the brand's long-gone predecessor.

A press release from the hotel states that the former Sutton Place "was known for being a combination of 'old-world charm and space-age elegance,' and we look forward to bringing the history of the original hotel back to life through our new location."

A representative of the hotel chain tells blogTO that renovation work included a facelift of the entire lobby as well as select meeting spaces.

The renovation also includes the newly unveiled Abrielle restaurant, which offers up coastal Mediterranean fare in a space fronting the corner of King and Blue Jays Way.

This new Toronto restaurant is as breathtaking as the food is delicious 🙌 https://t.co/sVzcrcR8w6 #Toronto #Abrielle #Restaurant #Foodie #TorontoFood

— blogTO (@blogTO) November 1, 2023

Other changes differentiating the Sutton Place rebrand from the soon-to-be-former King Blue Hotel include L'Occitane guestroom products as well as branded luxury bathrobes and slippers.

The Sutton Place rebrand will become official later in November, though the hotel is already taking bookings under the new branding as of the start of the month.