Hotel Construction News

Celebrity Couple Opening New Hotel & Spa In Florida

Owners Gloria and Emilio Estefan and operators Benchmark Hospitality International recently announced development plans for Costa d’Este, a new luxury resort in Vero Beach, Fla. Scheduled to open in January 2008, the four-star hotel and spa will offer 94 luxury guestrooms, a signature restaurant, and 1,170 square feet of event and meeting space.

“It is with particular pleasure that I announce Costa d’Este,” says Burt Cabañas, chairman and chief executive officer of Benchmark Hospitality. “The Estefans embody excellence and sophistication in all they do, whether it’s composing, recording, and performing their signature music; producing entertainment programming; or developing hospitality ventures. It is a pleasure to be working side-by-side with this highly respected team on this one-of-a-kind project.”

The Estefans also own the Cardozo Hotel in Miami Beach and Bongos Cuban Café at Walt Disney World. The Costa d’Este will host the signature restaurant Oriente, featuring Cuban-inspired fare and libations, with indoor/outdoor seating and bar service. The Estefan’s Cardoza Hotel also features an Oriente signature restaurant.

Spa programming at the resort will include a variety of treatments and products, along with interior spaces designed for relaxation and ambiance. In addition, guests will have oceanfront accommodations with beach access, an outdoor pool with a bar, and a fitness center.

Boston Jail Becomes Four-Star Hotel

The new Liberty Hotel in Boston opens this summer in the former Charles Street Jail, which operated from 1851 through 1990. Located in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood at 215 Charles Street, the 300-room luxury hotel incorporates portions of the former jail, such as cells in the hotel lobby bar and historic catwalks linking public areas of the hotel.

Most guestrooms are located in a new 16-story tower and feature four-fixture baths. The guestrooms also include bathrobes, in-room safes, private bars, high-speed Wi-Fi and wired connectivity, two VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephones, and flat-panel LCD televisions. And the 10 suites in the hotel feature views of the nearby Charles River.

In addition to the lobby bar, the hotel offers casual and fine dining in two restaurants. For business meetings, groups can take advantage of 6,000 square feet of meeting space, which includes a ballroom for formal dining or presentations. Additional guest amenities in the $120 million hotel are concierge service, valet parking, same-day dry cleaning and laundry valet, evening turndown service, a 24-hour health and fitness center, a business center, and wireless data connections in public areas.

New Marriott Opens In Metairie Business District

Marriott International recently opened the New Orleans Marriott Metairie at Lakeway, a 220-room hotel in the Metairie business district. Located near the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and Interstate 10, the hotel is 8 miles from Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.

The hotel has 16 floors with 186 guestrooms and 34 suites. Most rooms include views of Lake Pontchartrain or the New Orleans skyline, along with luxury bedding and mattresses, a 32-inch HD plasma television and plug-in panel for electronics, and high-speed Internet access.

For fine dining, Bistro 38 by Dominique features country French cuisine and New Orleans fare. The hotel also offers Bar 38, a pub open for lunch and dinner; and Perks, which is a coffee house that features pastries, light snacks, lunches, and Starbucks coffees. For businesses and events, numerous meeting rooms and a large ballroom provide 6,500 square feet of space. A fitness center with cardio equipment, weights, and a swimming pool is also located onsite.

Airport Construction News

Santa Barbara To Expand Terminal

The Santa Barbara Airport is the busiest hub airport on the California coast between Los Angeles and San Jose. Currently serving more than 800,000 passengers per year, the airport’s terminal is slated for improvements starting in the fall of 2008. The airport currently provides service to 10 cities with international airports: Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle.

The $60 million Airline Terminal Project seeks to increase accessibility and ease of use for passengers, improve vehicular transportation, incorporate the existing terminal’s unique Spanish Colonial architecture, and implement a sustainable green design. To achieve these goals, airport officials plan to relocate the original 1942 portion of the terminal and incorporate it in the new terminal complex. Lanes for parking and passenger drop off will be added, and the building will incorporate LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) for sustainable design, to the greatest extent possible. Currently in the design phase, the project completion date is estimated for 2010 or 2011.

Passengers See Improvements Fairbanks Airport

Since it was originally constructed in the 1950s, the Fairbanks International Airport terminal has undergone a series of expansions and remodeling projects through the 1980s. In an effort to modernize operations and create a more efficient terminal for passengers and airlines, a new $99 million terminal is currently under construction. If you travel to Fairbanks, Alaska, you’ll see that workers have started the steel framework for the new portion of the building.

Plans for the terminal project include replacing outdated mechanical and electrical systems, increasing the number of gates from five to six, improving international passenger arrivals, enlarging the terminal lobby, and increasing the capacity of baggage handling systems. A portion of the existing terminal will be incorporated in the new design, with older sections slated for demolition.

Opening in the spring of 2008, the new terminal addition will be two stories in height, with a glass front and exposed wood, concrete, and stone. When the addition opens, remodeling efforts will begin on the remaining 1985 portion of the existing terminal. The entire project is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2009.

Compiled by Carmen Carmack