The Grand Hyatt Selected as Flag for New Miami Beach Convention Center Hotel

The development team behind Miami Beach’s new Convention Center hotel announced today that the 800-room property will be operated by Hyatt under the luxury Grand Hyatt brand, when it opens to guests in 2023. Grand Hyatt Miami Beach will create a new hospitality option for visitors attending events at the adjacent Miami Beach Convention Center, which underwent a $600 million renovation that was completed last year, and will anchor the Convention Center District.

The new hotel will become the second Grand Hyatt property in Florida, joining Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay. Grand Hyatt hotels are designed to connect guests with iconic experiences, landmarks and cultural touchstones in captivating destinations around the world. Hallmarks of the brand include bold and vibrant design and architecture, elevated amenities and welcoming service that creates moments of more.

The hotel development is being led by David Martin of Terra and Jackie Soffer of Turnberry, whose plans for the hotel were overwhelmingly approved by Miami Beach voters in 2018. The 17-story hotel will be situated at the intersection of 17th Street and Convention Center Drive, within walking distance of the beachfront, Lincoln Road Mall, New World Symphony, The Bass Museum and The Fillmore Miami Beach.

“For years, Miami Beach has served as a global destination for arts, culture, shopping, dining and entertainment, but the City has lacked a true headquarters hotel for top-tier conventions and meetings,” said Martin and Soffer. “South Florida’s first Grand Hyatt hotel will maximize Miami Beach’s investment in its re-imagined Convention Center while bridging the physical gap that exists between the Convention Center District and surrounding neighborhoods.”

 Grand Hyatt Miami Beach will be designed by architect Bernardo Fort-Brescia and his firm, Miami-based Arquitectonica. The development team also includes partner Craig Robins of Dacra, who is the visionary behind the Miami Design District and helped revive Miami Beach’s Art Deco District in the 1990s; Stonehill Taylor, which is designing the hotel’s interior lobby and lounges, ballroom and meeting rooms, hotel rooms and all common areas; EOA, which is designing the pool deck hospitality features of the hotel; and Arquitectonica GEO, which is creating lush pedestrian promenades and landscapes.

Hotel features are expected to include 12 floors of guest rooms offering views of Miami Beach, two floors of meeting spaces and ballrooms that will complement the Convention Center, a resort-style pool deck with panoramic views, and limited retail space that will activate the district at street level. An elevated skybridge will enable event attendees to move freely between the hotel and Convention Center in a climate-controlled, art-filled corridor. 

Plans also include landscaped pedestrian promenades on surrounding streets, bike sharing stations, connectivity with public transit routes, dedicated ridesharing pick-up and drop-off zones, and direct access between the Convention Center and Lincoln Road. The project’s resiliency and sustainability measures include storm water management and reuse, flood risk mitigation, and the use of solar power – all of which are designed to ensure operational continuity during weather events.

“The Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau (GMCVB) joins Terra, Turnberry and The City of Miami Beach in welcoming the Grand Hyatt Miami Beach as the newly named brand for the 800-room headquarter hotel connected to the Miami Beach Convention Center,” said William D. Talbert, III, CDME, President of the GMCVB.  “Grand Hyatt Miami Beach makes it possible to better compete for citywide conventions which fuel jobs in our community and generates business for all of Greater Miami’s hotels and merchants. We look forward to the hotel ground-breaking which once completed will finalize the Miami Beach Convention Center District.” 

By Katya Demina

Voters Approve Privately Funded Miami Beach Convention Center Hotel

In the highly anticipated election on Tuesday night, Miami Beach residents approved the construction of an 800-room convention center hotel. The referendum needed a 60 percent vote in order to lease public land from the city and passed at 64 percent in its third attempt to bring a headquarter hotel to Miami. The hotel will be built on a city-owned parking lot adjacent to the newly renovated convention center.

The previous attempt in 2016 failed due to concerns over the size, originally twice as large as the current proposal, and traffic congestion. The tourism bureau estimates Miami Beach lost at least $250 million in economic revenue over the last several years because it was unable to accommodate larger scale conventions.

South Beach resident Andres Montejo, 43, said that the convention center hotel was one of the issues that drove him to the polls. Montejo, a businessman who travels frequently for work, said that the other cities he visits already have hotels connected to their convention centers.

“A convention center is great, but without a hotel it’s just another convention center,” he said after casting his ballot at Miami Beach Senior High School. “Anybody that travels ... you know that’s how the game works. It’s like that all over the world.”

Other residents, annoyed with the constant flow of construction and resulting noise and traffic in the area, decided to vote against the hotel.

The hotel will connect to the convention center via a pedestrian bridge and include a 53-foot podium containing parking, meeting spaces and ballrooms as well as two 185-foot-tall wings of hotel rooms. Voters authorized the lease and the construction of an 800-room hotel with a maximum height of 185 feet, but specifics of the hotel design will be evaluated by the city’s Design Review Board at a later date.

The group behind the proposal — Turnberry’s Jackie Soffer, Terra Group’s David Martin, Miami Design District developer Craig Robins and architecture firm Arquitectonica — emphasized that the hotel would be roughly 100 feet shorter than the previous proposal and include six times more space for cars to queue on the property so that they don’t spill onto the street.

“This is the right project for our city at the right time, and Jackie, Craig and I look forward to working with the community to deliver a hotel that will make Miami Beach proud,” said developer David Martin.

On a related ballot item, residents voted to earmark the guaranteed hotel rent payments for traffic reduction measures, stormwater projects and education initiatives, rather than sending the money to the city’s general fund where it could be used for a broader range of expenses.

According to the terms of the lease agreement, the hotel will have to pay Miami Beach either fixed rent totaling $16.6 million over the first 10 years or a percentage of hotel revenue, whichever is greater. Miami Beach estimates that the city will also collect $96 million in taxes from the hotel over the next 30 years.

Article by: Katya Demina

Augmented Reality App Launching in Miami to Help Drive Foot Traffic to Brick and Mortar Businesses

ARVISL Future is a Miami based technology startup founded by Krystal Kunyue Zheng, a recent Florida International University graduate. ARVISL Future is based at CIC Miami, the hub of South Florida's startup and technology scene.

This November, ARVISL is launching its first mobile application, SAVR, in Miami. SAVR aims to bring measurable foot traffic to local brick and mortar businesses with technologies like location based service and augmented reality. Zheng describes SAVR as the fusion of Pokemon Go and Groupon.

With location based services, SAVR can reach, measure and engage with local and tourism traffic at any specific location. By combining augmented reality and location based service technology, SAVR also allows businesses to showcase products in real life that are outside of their current geographic location.

Consumers are navigated to a business if they find its AR incentive enticing: complimentary drinks, food or swag items.Zheng has introduced an innovative marketing metric for physical businesses called “cost per traffic™", where brick and mortar businesses will measure how much an individual's foot traffic costs. SAVR provides performanced based service fees to businesses who decide to place AR incentives around the city. Therefore, businesses will only pay for foot traffic brought into their location.

“Instead of driving attention strictly to a web page, we're offering local businesses that aren't able to compete with national online retailers a way to survive in the digital age while maintaining the charm of their physical presence that has such a profound effect on our communities,” said Zheng.

SAVR will welcome Miami users and businesses for a first-hand experience this November. Users can download SAVR on both the iOS App Store and Android Google Play Store and businesses can participate in AR sampling by filing a request on the SAVR website.

Article by: Katya Demina

Pulte Group to Redevelop Former Golf Course in Oakland Park

National home builder Pulte Group has submitted a smaller development proposal for the former Oak Tree Golf Course, a 139.2 acre site in Oakland Park that they have under contract from Blackwood Partners. The trend of golf courses being repurposed is a familiar story line in South Florida due to high operation and maintenance costs. According to Marty Kiar, a Broward property appraiser, at least three of 45 golf courses in the county have closed in the last five years.

Residents of Oakland Park raised concerns about density and traffic in response to the original 850 home proposal, which Pulte Group downsized to 288 homes and 117 townhouses. The revised plan also preserves 40 acres for green spaces and fitness trails, and includes a buffer zone to separate the community from existing homes near the greenway. The defunct Oak Tree Golf Course stopped operating about ten years ago.  

The development is pending Broward County’s approval for the land-use change and site-plan application, represented by attorney Dennis D. Mele. Prices for the townhouses would start in the $300,000s and range from $400,000 to $600,000 for the one and two-story homes.

Article by: Katya Demina