The Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek and Waldorf Astoria Orlando near Walt Disney World are looking for a multimillion-dollar upgrade.
Plans call for a nearly 55,000-square-foot expansion, including a 35,000-square-foot ballroom, which will cost roughly $50 million to $60 million, according to the company’s November 2017 investor report.
The hotel properties, which are interconnected via a conference center, want to expand the available meeting space across two buildings. One larger room will be added to the rear of the existing Hilton Bonnet Creek meeting space where an existing golf course lies, while another smaller ballroom building will be added to the Waldorf Astoria next to its main entrance on vacant land.
The plans were filed for G/B/H Four Star LLC and G/B/H Golf Course LLC, which are entities related to McLean, Va.-based Park Hotels & Resorts.
The project is still in the early design phase, and won’t be completed until 2019 or 2020, Ian Weissman, senior vice president of corporate strategy for Park Hotels & Resorts, told Orlando Business Journal. He declined to share any other information on the property.
The property boasts a total of 174,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting space and approximately 1,511 hotel rooms. The new addition to the meeting space will take up nearly 2 acres, according to plans submitted to Orange County.
Contractors involved in the project include Orlando architecture firm Baker Barrios, Donald W. McIntosh Associates Inc. as civil engineer, and Sims Wilkerson Cartier Engineering Inc. providing electrical engineer services.
That area near Disney has been active with hotel development. DCS Real Estate Investments V LLC, whose parent company is West Palm Beach-based DCS Real Estate Holdings, is working on the $350 million, 700,000-square-foot, 516-room JW Marriott Bonnet Creek hotel which is under construction and should open by 2019.
Luxury properties attract high-end travelers — and big spenders — to Central Florida, which allows local businesses to tap into that lucrative market. In addition, meeting space helps lure more conventions and trade shows that are a big part of the overall visitation success in Central Florida.
Orlando’s $60 billion tourism industry is the region’s dominant economic engine, and draws 68 million-plus visitors to town annually.
News Source: bizjournals.com