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W Hotel Fort Lauderdale Will Rise 23 Stories, Cost $220 million;
Key Partner, CL Financial of Trinidad,
 Will Own the Finished Hotel
By Tom Stieghorst, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Aug. 1, 2003 - The hip, iconoclastic W Hotel division of Starwood Hotels & Resorts will plant its flag on Fort Lauderdale beach by managing a 346-room hotel proposed just north of the Sheraton Yankee Trader.

W Hotels were created by Starwood to mimic designer boutique hotels but with the service and features of a chain. The Fort Lauderdale outpost, scheduled to open in 2006, will be the first W in Florida and the first of the company's 17 properties to be a resort hotel.

The $220 million cost is the highest ever for a Fort Lauderdale resort.

Known for high fashion interiors, original art work, chic lounges and new age services, W's mantra is "on the edge," said Jerrold Krystoff, one of the developers.

Most W hotels bear an oversized red W on the front, the company trademark. Check-in shares space with a living-room style lounge, complete with sofas and throw pillows, and a signature bar meant to draw locals as well as tourists. W's concierge is called the Whatever/Whenever department.

Even the meeting rooms are hip. They come with mood music, aromatherapy scents and bowls of "retro candies" such as Red Hots.

The hotel's local builders are convinced W is the perfect match for Fort Lauderdale's sophisticated, New York-centric visitor profile, as well as for its residents. "It's basically what eastern Fort Lauderdale is all about," Krystoff said.

If there is a drawback to the hotel, it is size. Although it meets all zoning rules and has been granted site plan approval, the W Hotel Fort Lauderdale will rise 23 stories, cover 4.5 acres and represent about 1 million square feet of enclosed real estate between Bayshore Drive and Riomar Street along State Road A1A.

In addition to the hotel rooms, there will be 171 resort condos, 13,000 square feet of meeting rooms, a 10,000-square-foot spa and parking for 1,000 cars.

Colonial Development Group, which is building the hotel, is the same firm behind the controversial Palazzo Las Olas mixed-use project proposed for a city parking lot at the foot of the Las Olas Bridge.

Joseph Cook, chief executive of Colonial, said the land for the W Hotel site cost $20 million to assemble. "Because of the cost of the real estate, you need to have the size," he said.

Advocates for tourism to Broward County say the trade-off is worth it.

"It is intense development, but it is intentional development," said Nicki Grossman, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau. "I don't think anyone would want to look at that area the way it was 10 years ago," she said.

Hotel analysts said they see a good match. "It's one of the high end names that isn't that high-end," said Miami lodging consultant Scott Brush. "You don't want to put something on Fort Lauderdale beach that costs $500 a night because that isn't the market.

"It's hip and it fits with Fort Lauderdale's image a lot better than one of those stuffy, staid old names," Brush said.

The average daily rate at W Hotels is between $200 and $250 a night.

The site where the W Hotel would rise is currently occupied by aging 1950s hotels such as the Bahama, the Southern Shores, and the Days Inn Oceanside. Site plans were approved in 2001, and Colonial has a permit to start foundation work, but doesn't yet have a building permit, Krystoff said.

Most important, the project has financing.

A key partner in Colonial is CL Financial, a $5 billion conglomerate in Trinidad that will own the finished hotel through its Capri Resorts subsidiary. The chairman of CL Financial, Lawrence Duprey, decided several years ago to diversify its real estate investments to include the United States.

Prior to that, CL Financial had scattershot U.S. holdings. Cook was Duprey's real estate attorney for those deals.

A tough climate for hotel financing has held back the redevelopment of Fort Lauderdale beach where only one of eight projects permitted in the past few years is under construction. The Atlantic, a 15-story, 124-unit condo hotel several blocks north of the W Hotel site was begun in February. It is expected to open next year.

Another project, the 197-room St. Regis Hotel & Residences, has been stalled since it broke ground in January 2002. It on the verge of final financing, a spokeswoman said.

The three hotels would all be run by different arms of Starwood, which also runs the Westin Diplomat Resort in Hollywood. Sheraton is another Starwood brand, but the Sheraton Yankee Trader and Clipper hotels are managed locally by Gill Hotels, which has a franchise pact with Sheraton.

Several years ago, it appeared that the first W Hotel would be on Miami Beach, but plans to convert the Art Deco-era Ritz Plaza on South Beach to the brand never materialized.

W HOTEL:

What: Hip, modern chain hotel

Where: From Bayshore Drive to Riomar Street, Fort Lauderdale beach

Rooms: 346 hotel, 171 condo

Cost: $220 million

Developer: Colonial Development Group

Operator: Starwood Hotels & Resorts

Opening: late 2006

Source: Colonial, Starwood

-----To see more of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel -- including its homes, jobs, cars and other classified listings -- or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sun-sentinel.com.

(c) 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. HOT,

 
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