The first Sheraton-Tel Aviv Hotel was located 1 mile north of today's hotel, on the north side of Independence Park. The hotel was originally designed in 1948 as the Nordau Plaza Hotel, and construction was 80 percent completed in 1952, when it was halted. The incomplete shell was acquired by Chicago-based investors in 1957, who planned to complete it, but that project collapsed. It was finally bought by a Milwaukee-based group, which completed the $4,500,000, 220-room, 7-story hotel. It opened in March 1961 as the Sheraton-Tel Aviv Hotel, the first Sheraton hotel outside the US and Canada. The 16th Chess Olympiad was held at the Sheraton-Tel Aviv in 1964. A 136-room wing was added to the hotel in November 1970. The Sheraton was renamed in 1974 and demolished in 1991. The site remains vacant today, but the adjacent beach is still known locally as "Sheraton Beach".