Works paves way for convention center hotel groundbreaking

The Miami Beach Convention Center welcomes some of the community’s most anticipated events such as Art Basel and the Discover Boating Miami International Boat Show. Complementing the center’s impact is the Grand Hyatt Miami Beach Convention Center Hotel, expected to break ground next door in 2024 at 17th Street and Convention Center Drive.

“We currently are doing infrastructure enhancements to the property and provisioning the property to be ready for work,” said David Martin, CEO of Terra, a Miami-based development firm working on the hotel. “We’re doing a lot of site work on the property now… and we’ll be starting construction next year.”

Terra and Turnberry, two real estate development groups, partnered to develop the hotel and chose Balfour Beatty as general contractor. In 2018, the Miami Beach Convention Center was renovated after undergoing a $640 million renovation.

“The City of Miami Beach and the county had just invested a huge amount of dollars to reimagining the convention center and we [Terra and Turnberry] understood that there have been attempts in the past to try to work and get an approval for the development of a hotel that would be a headquarters hotel for the convention center,” said Mr. Martin. “We saw the need, there was … somewhat of a community and stakeholder kind of request … and meeting planners that are booking conventions need to have room block agreements in order for them to always think of making an amazing experience for the conventioneers and their clients.”

The need for building and competing among other convention centers in Florida and in the United States played a role.

“In a situation where Miami Beach is today, there is a huge need for a headquarters hotel because we’re missing a lot of the great conventions to other markets like Orlando or Atlanta or Louisiana that [are] really … garnering a lot of the economic benefits associated with conventions in those cities that we’re not getting because of the lack of this headquarters hotel.” said Mr. Martin.

“Turnberry and Terra got together and the City of Miami Beach issued a Request for Proposals (RFP). We won the RFP and we’ve been working together on designing, engineering and building and doing a lot of provisioning for the hotel to get built,” Mr. Martin said.

The 17-story hotel is to include 800 rooms and allow for guests to have easy accessibility to locations nearby. The job market in the area will also be impacted as well as the economic scene in the city.

“The hotel is at a very important property and it’s adjacent to the convention center,” said Mr. Martin. “There will be a pedestrian bridge that connects the hotel to the entire convention. Number two, I think… It’s going to enhance the walkable experience connecting the convention center to Lincoln Road, Lincoln Road being a very important kind of amenity and experience for convention goers. And so, I think this project is going to be activating the ground floor and creating an additional drop-off for traffic mitigation.”

“I think,” he said, “the hotel is going to create over 750 permanent jobs, which is important… the City of Miami Beach and the county are going to be receiving significant tax revenues and tourism tax revenues, etc. There’s an economic benefit and public benefit for the community into the coffers of the city and county.”

The hotel has also included climate-conscious decisions as the developers have taken the environment into account.

“We have a solar energy component that we did on the roof, and we have stormwater reuse projects that we’re doing as well, and that’s integrated in the project,” said Mr. Martin. “We saved a lot of the trees and relocated the trees into other parks in the city that were on the property.”

As plans for construction in the upcoming year near, the long-awaited hotel is expected to positively impact the city.

“This [hotel] is … a great missing piece,” said Mr. Martin. “There’s some amazing amenities like the convention center, like the New World Symphony, like the Pride Park, like the Botanical Garden, like the Fillmore, and all that … somewhat the convention center district and … to have a convention center hotel with connectivity to the beach, connectivity to the golf, connectivity to a walkable neighborhood, I think it’s going to be really a very special asset in place and it’s going to be an important amenity for the district.”