At a Joint/Special City Commission/CRA meeting on Dec. 15, the Hollywood City Commission unanimously approved the allocation of 39 additional rooms for the Margaritaville Hotel, bringing the total to 349 rooms in the 17-story building, and approved the site plan for the Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort Project.
Leander Hamilton, planning administrator, said the proposed site plan presented to the City Commissioners was consistent with the criteria set forth in the Zoning and Land Development Regulations, Comprehensive Plan and City-Wide Master Plan.
“The City-Wide Master Plan tells us exactly what we need to do to make Hollywood a place where we all want to be,” Hamilton said, “and the similarities in these site plans (the one mapped out in the Master Plan and the proposed Margaritaville plan) really are striking. We really took our time and looked everything over. This hotel was designed to be a world-class, resort-style hotel.”
The City sent out requests for proposals for the redevelopment of the city-owned, 6-acre parcel in the summer of 2009 and commenced negotiations and preliminary technical reviews with Margaritaville in May 2010. Margaritaville out-scored three other proposals, including Plant Hollywood.
The property – bounded by A1A to the west, Johnson Street to the north, Michigan Street to the south and the Broadwalk to the east – contains an east and west parcel for Margaritaville Enterprises, a Jimmy Buffett Caribbean Island destination enterprise that promotes an escapism lifestyle, to develop.
Hamilton said the west parcel, located along the Intracoastal Waterway, will contain a dock with a pavilion and public restrooms. The east side, or Oceanside, will contain the 349-room hotel; 25,500-square-foot restaurant and retail space; 22,604-sqaure-foot ballroom; 15,500-square-foot spa and fitness area; a pool deck which will contain three pools, plus the Lone Palm Bar, the Air Stream Bar and Captain Tony’s Pizza Shack; two outdoor lawns; and a parking garage with up to 456 hotel parking spaces and up to 600 public parking spaces.
“Everything is going according to plan,” said Lon Tabatchnick, developer for the $130 million Margaritaville project. “It’s going better than I would have expected it to have gone. This is a huge undertaking, and we’ve taken the time to get it right.”
With the passing of these agenda items, the Development and Lease Agreement, along with the companion documents, will be presented next to the City Commission at the Jan. 19 City Commission meeting.
For more information about the status of the Margaritaville project, visit the City of Hollywood’s website at www.hollywoodfl.org and click on the Johnson Street/Beach RFP link under the Hot Information section.
