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THE NEVE
.
CORRESPONDENT'S REPORT
New Luxury Hotels Lead
A Revival in Miami
By ABBY GOODNOUGH for all of last year. The average room rate
for the first 10 months of 2003 was $107.30
compared with $110.20 in 2001 and $103.99
MIAMI last year.
INIMALIST chic may have1\4
"We still have a ways to go,"Mr.Whitaker
been the prevailing formula said, "but we are narrowing the gap while
among the boutique hotels absorbing a whole new category of proper-
that thrived in South Beach ties."
in the 1990's, but the latest Mr. Whitaker also said that luxury hotels •
.4 trend, fueled by a growing number of busi- were generally better suited to weathering
ness travelers jetting in from this country the storm of a bad economy than lower-
and Latin America,is unabashed luxury. priced hotels because the huge,hardy com-
Mandarin Oriental, Four Seasons and panies that own them can continue to pour •
Ritz-Carlton all opened their first properties in resources.
here in the last three years, and more top- Mandarin Oriental, the Japanese chain,
' shelf hotels are due in the coming months. was a pioneer of the luxury trend here when
Most were in the works well before the 2001 it opened a 329-room hotel on Brickell Key,a
terrorist attacks hobbled South Florida's residential island adjacent to the downtown
tourism trade, and while the industry has business district, in November 2000. Two
yet to recover fully, tourism officials are new Ritz-Carltons followed: a 450 room ho-
touting the new crop of luxury hotels as tel,spa and meeting center on Key Biscayne
R- proof of Miami's rising stature as not just a m July 2001, and a 115-room branch, also
,_ beach resort,but a cosmopolitan center. with spa and meeting space, in Coconut
In particular, the officials say, the in- Grove last year.
AnotherRitz-Cn was to arlto
creasingly upscale lodging choices on and �-- � open last
around Brickell Avenue, the heart of Mi- Wednesday in South Beach, in a 1950's Art
ami's financial district, demonstrate the Moderne building that once housed the DiLi-
city's popularity as an international busi- do Hotel. The oceanfront hotel's 375 rooms `.
ness destination. are designed to resemble staterooms on a
luxury yacht, and artwork by Joan Miro,
among others,will decorate the lobby,pool V `�.
<'3 0 0 (3 0 ) 1 ) ' 1 area and 13,000-square-foot spa.
,3 i� ,,� 1 .) j The Four Seasons Hotel Miami, with 221 -
rooms, 14,210 square feet of meeting space
0 0 03 ,) ) and a 45,000-square-foot spa,opened in a 70
' 0 1
0 0 ) story tower downtown on Brickell Avenue in
_ „' I O .) October.
Like several luxury hotels still on the .'
k .(- drawing board, the Four Seasons is in a
building that also offers condominiums for
sale. That configuration, tourism officials
N .M. ----z?!-S-..:-7..2 r say,makes such properties more palatable
.. to investors wary of a glut of luxury hotel
Tim Kiusalaas/Ritz-Carlton rooms. Similar properties include a 203-
The lobby of the new room Conrad Hilton — only the second in
Ritz-Canton,South Beach, this country — scheduled to open in the
spring in a 36-story residential building on
Brickell Avenue, and the Setai, owned by l
r . The luxury hotels are opening as Miami is General Hotel Management-of Singapore,
;; trying mightily to revitalize its long-blight- expected to open late next year in South
ed downtown. A $344 million performing Beach.
. arts center is rising on Biscayne Boulevard, Further down the road,two luxury hotels i
_, with a 2,400-seat opera house and a 2,200- are planned for Watson Island,an artificial
seat concert hall,scheduled to open in 2006. island connecting Miami and South Beach,
And voters have approved a proposal to until now largely a thoroughfare.The devel-
build new homes for the Miami Museum of opers, Flagstone Properties, are trying to
Science and the Miami Art Museum in a wa- differentiate their properties by stressing
terfront park that will abut a planned luxury that their plans include a marina for large
condominium complex called Ten Museum yachts, a shopping and dining complex, a
;,, Park. maritime museum,a spa and gardens.
Eight new hotels have opened in the Mr.Whitaker said that while he and other
Greater Miami area since September 2001, tourism officials worried that there would
of which three—the Ritz-Carlton in Coconut not be sufficient demand for the spate of lux-
Grove,.the Four Seasons, and the Trump ury hotels, experience has proved them
Ocean Grande Resort Hotel in Sunny Isles wrong.
—are in the luxury category. "We are back in an era of big opulence
David Whitaker,senior vice president for again,"he said,"and competition is the best
marketing and tourism at the Greater Mi- way for improvement and reinvestment to
- ami Convention and Visitors Bureau, said take place."
that while the number of international visi- Sure enough, 50's-era resort properties
tors to Miami was nowhere near what it had like the Eden Roc and the Fontainebleau
been before the terrorist attacks, overall Hilton,the luxury hotels of their day in Mi-
tourism was slowly climbing. ami Beach,have made or are making eaten-
, According to statistics from Smith Travel sive renovations.The Eden Roc added a lav-
_ Research, hotel occupancy in Miami-Dade ish spa and a climbing wall,while the Fon-
County through the first nine months of 2003 tainebleau put in a 7,000-square-foot water
;, was 64 percent, compared with 66 percent park and is adding condominiums and luau-
for the same period in 2001,and 62.2 percent ry suites.