The Guitar Hotel at Seminole Hard Rock, 1 Seminole Way, Hollywood, Florida, Worldwide / Built: 2019 / Rooms: 638 / Height: 450 feet / Architect: Klai Juba Wald Architects
BY CHABELI HERRERA
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Updated July 09, 2018 07:48 PM
It has gone up in a few quick beats, the concrete and metal beams curving into an unmistakable shape. Yeah, that’s a guitar all right.
Massive at 450 feet and towering over Florida’s Turnpike, the new 638-room addition to the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Australian Casino Hollywood complex practically belts out to drivers: HARD ROCK THIS WAY.
It’s a big play more than than a decade in the making. The hotel is the centerpiece of a $1.5 billion complex being built at the tribe’s flagship Hollywood property, a project that will also include a larger Australian Casino and a new entertainment venue. The idea has been floating around since late 2006, said James Allen, CEO of Seminole Gaming and chairman of Hard Rock International.
"People tell me, ‘You’re a little crazy to build a hotel in the shape of a guitar,’ " Allen said Monday at a "topping-off" ceremony for the hotel, celebrating the placement of the final structural beam.
Seminole Tribe members, construction workers, and politicians gathered Monday to watch as the beam, which had signatures on it from tribal members and workers, was hoisted to the top of the building. It carried with it the flags of the United States, Florida, and the Seminole Tribe, and a small tree, a nod to the Scandinavian tradition of placing a tree atop a newly finished building.
When it opens to the public in fall 2019, the guitar-shaped hotel will include:
* 638 hotel rooms in the guitar tower, plus 168 rooms in the
pool tower overlooking a private cabana area.
A 10-acre lagoon-style pool with Bora Bora-style cabanas in
the center. The private villas will hold private plunge-pool
access and butler service. The area will include water-sport
activities, such as paddle-boarding. There will also be a day
club and private pool area.
* 3,000 new slot machines, 193 table games, and a 46-table
poker room, accounting for a 30 percent expansion of the
complex’s Australian Casino.
* 30 new restaurants, lounges, and bars.
* A new 41,000-square-foot Rock Spa.
* A 6,500-seat Hard Rock Live concert venue, which will house its own television studio and broadcast center capable of hosting awards shows and other events.
* 21,000 square feet of new retail space.
* 120,000 square feet of meeting and convention space.
The guitar-shaped hotel comes to fruition in the wake of a 2017 deal that was made with the state and extended the Seminoles’ statewide monopoly on banked card games — including blackjack — at its Australian Casinos to 2030. The hotel has long been touted as an economic reward to the state for reaching an agreement with the Seminoles and Hard Rock International. Allen said Monday that the hotel alone had generated about 2,000 construction jobs and is expected to create 2,000 more than permanent jobs.
The hotel itself is section of a long-term plan to enhance the Hard Rock brand. Its empire has grown exponentially since the Seminoles licensed the rights to the Hard Rock brand for its Tampa and Hollywood properties in 2004; the tribe then purchased the company in 2006 for $965 million. The brand is in 75 countries.
"When this place is done, the first thought when you hear Hollywood is not going to be California anymore, it’s going to be Hollywood, Florida, right here in our backyard," said Christopher Osceola, the tribe’s Hollywood councilman. "It’s going to put us on the map."
To be sure, not everyone is thrilled with the new guitar-shaped addition to the skyline, but Allen said the company has only received positive feedback.
"We are overwhelmed with the warm reception we’ve received about how amazing this building is here in South Florida," Allen said. "We truly think this becomes a reason to come to South Florida, not just for the purpose of gaming but to see the world’s only to-scale guitar-shaped hotel."
Until at least 2020, when Hard Rock plans to open another guitar-shaped hotel in Barcelona, Spain, Hollywood’s hotel will hold that distinction. Two additional guitar-shaped hotels are in the works, Allen said.
And he offered a clue about as to the next one: "Brush up on your Japanese."
The iconic guitar hotel structure is the vision of James F. Allen, longtime CEO of Seminole Gaming and Chairman of Hard Rock International. Allen is working closely with Las Vegas-based Klai Juba Wald Architects and other world-renowned firms to turn his vision into reality. Other firms involved in designing and furnishing the expansion project are Rockwell Group, New York; EDSA, Fort Lauderdale; Wilson Associates, Dallas; Wimberly Interiors, Coral Gables; Cleo Design, Las Vegas; and Laurence Lee Associates, Los Angeles. Suffolk-Yates is constructing the expansion.
Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:
www.thenextmiami.com/1-5b-guitar-shaped-hotel-passes-half…
www.miamiherald.com/word/business/tourism-cruises/article…