1675-15 New Hotels 10 of 11, 46 Terms
mh94 POWERFUL FAMILIES BID FOR BEACH HOTEL 03/01/1994
THE MIAMI HERALD
Copyright (c) 1994, The Miami Herald
DATE: Tuesday, March 1, 1994 EDITION: FINAL
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1C LENGTH: 65 lines
ILLUSTRATION: photo: The AMERICANA HOTEL
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: ANTHONY FAIOLA Herald Business Writer
POWERFUL FAMILIES BID FOR BEACH HOTEL
CASINO NOT REQUIRED, THEY SAY
The Tisch and Ratner families, two powerful business clans with longtime
ties to Dade County real estate, are joining together in a bid to build a new
800-room convention hotel on South Beach.
The partnership unites the Tisch family of New York -- including CBS
Chairman Laurence Tisch and his nephew, Loews Hotels President Jonathan Tisch
-- with the Ratners of Cleveland, owners of Forest City Ratner Cos., a
national real estate giant with $2.5 billion in holdings.
The high-powered families are the latest to show interest in constructing
a convention center hotel on 5.5 acres of land owned by the city of Miami
Beach at Collins Avenue and 16th Street.
Besides the Tisch/Ratner group, 55 other investors have indicated an
interest in the project by requesting bidding packages from Miami Beach city
officials. Included in the fray are Donald Trump, Bally Manufacturing Corp.
and Hyatt Hotels.
The big names underscore the lucrative nature of such a hotel, especially
at a time when many are betting on casinos in Florida to boost convention
business on Miami Beach -- where no new hotels have been built in more than
two decades.
Jonathan Tisch said Monday, however, that the companies were interested
in the convention center hotel project -- casinos or not.
"Our numbers indicate that this hotel will be successful with or without
casino gambling," Tisch said in a phone interview from New York. "We have a
history of doing business in Miami, and the need for a large convention hotel
in Miami has never been stronger."
Neither the Tisch or Ratner families are strangers to South Florida.
In 1957, the Tisch family developed the famed 717-room Americana Hotel.
The family sold the property, now the Sheraton Bal Harbour, in 1972. The
family was an initial investor in the Deering Bay residential project on Old
Cutler Road with local developer Armando Codina, and it owns a stake in the
Beacon Centre in West Dade.
The Ratners, meanwhile, built the 70-room Clevelander Hotel on Ocean
Drive in 1938 -- at a cost of $75,000. They sold it in 1985 for $1 million.
The family also worked with a committee on Miami Beach to develop a
revitalization plan for Lincoln Road Mall last year.
Today, the Ratners own one of the nation's largest real estate
development companies. Among their recent projects: the 4.2
million-square-foot Metrotech Center in Brooklyn. The company also intends to
build a massive retail/entertainment mall in Atlantic City that will include
a hotel and casino.
The bid from Tisch/Ratner to build on Miami Beach could have an edge on
the others.
Miami Beach is offering up to $60 million in land incentives to any hotel
developer, but the private investment needed to construct the hotel is high,
hovering around $100 million.
The families, however, say their proposal includes an undisclosed amount
of equity fronted by the families, and a letter from an financial institution
willing to fund a first mortgage.
Next Monday, both Jonathan Tisch and Bruce C. Ratner will fly into town
to present their proposal to Miami Beach officials in person. In the deal, the
Ratners would build the project, and the Tisch family would operate it under
the Loews name.
cutlines
TISCH CREATION: The Americana Hotel, now the Sheraton Bal Harbour, is
shown in 1957. The Tisch family developed the hotel.
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