Dive Brief:
- Fontainebleau Miami Beach will open a newly built convention center in the fourth quarter of 2024, the resort announced Tuesday.
- The 45,000-square-foot space, dubbed the Coastal Convention Center, will feature a versatile design intended to accommodate everything from intimate to large-scale events, spanning both business and leisure purposes.
- The addition comes as meetings and events travel is experiencing strong momentum across the U.S., including in Miami, where Fontainebleau said the social and convention tourism industry is “booming.”
Dive Insight:
The Coastal Convention Center — located 12 miles from Miami International Airport — will include a 16,500-square-foot divisible ballroom with an outdoor terrace, a 9,500-square-foot “junior” ballroom, 15 meeting rooms and 15,000 square feet of pre-function space. A 7,000-square-foot rooftop terrace will offer ocean views.
Miami-based architecture firm Nichols Architects and interior designer Jeffrey Beers International are leading the design, which will pay homage to Fontainebleau Miami Beach’s original architect Morris Lapidus.
Fontainebleau Development Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Soffer said the convention center reflects “the next evolution” of Fontainebleau’s brand, and he hopes the space will be a “jewel” in the city’s social and tourism sector.
Fontainebleau also said that it is building the center to meet LEED certification standards, employing insulated glass to control temperatures inside the space and building in a rainwater collection and recycling system.
Offering more environmentally friendly spaces to host meetings can be good for business, one hotel expert told Hotel Dive last week, as many event planners work for larger companies that have ambitious sustainability goals.
Travel to Miami for conferences and events ramped up in 2023, Leo Reilly, of Marcus & Millichap, shared with Hotel Dive in December.
The Miami market’s resurgence of business travel has been accompanied by an uptick in luxury hotel projects, experts said.
Earlier this week, hospitality technology provider Cvent named Fontainebleau Miami Beach among its top meetings hotels in the U.S. It also ranked Miami No. 13 on its list of top meeting destinations in North America.
And according to Knowland and Amadeus’ Hospitality Group and Business Performance Index, Miami was among the U.S. cities that saw more than 100% recovery in group business performance in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The Fontainebleau brand expanded with an opening in Las Vegas in December, where a 3,644-room resort, casino and shopping complex was 15 years in the making.
