The hotel will include 30,000 sq. ft. of retail on the ground level, a 320-space parking deck on the second level, and a ballroom and meeting rooms on levels 3 and 4. A large pool deck with 30,000 sq. ft. of restaurant use will be on the fifth level. The rest of the hotel, levels 6 through 17, will include guest rooms.
Attorney Michael Larkin said the pool area will include “multiple restaurant concepts.” This meeting of the Design Review Board (DRB) was to answer questions raised at a meeting earlier this year on some of the finer details of the design. Architect Bernardo Fort-Brescia of Arquitectonica brought a glass sample with him with the same “slight green tint” as the Convention Center. “The idea was to relate to the building adjacent to us,” he said.
Fort-Brescia also presented new renderings which provide “an accurate depiction” of the columns that will run along the ground level retail area. The DRB members had asked to see how the structural elements would look once the structural engineer had weighed in.
One final detail was how the coral keystone that is on the façade of the Henry Hohauser-designed building to be demolished would be reused. The developers, David Martin and Jackie Soffer, plan to install it on the wall of the new Welcome Center on the corner of 17th Street and, with the floor to ceiling glass on the exterior, making it visible to passersby. Larkin provided one caveat, however, that there is a chance the stone could be fragile and crumble when it is removed from the building but the goal is to reuse as much of it as possible.
Voters approved the hotel in November 2018. The City has set a goal for completion of Fall of 2022. A six-acre park across the street from the Convention Center and hotel is under construction. It is expected to be completed in October.
There are still a few minor details to be ironed out with City Planning staff but the heavy lifting on the hotel design is complete.
The final renderings, including the ground level column locations, are below.
Renderings: Arquitectonica
