Balfour Beatty Signs US$780 Million Construction Agreement to Deliver Convention Centre Expansion and Hotel

Main Photo: The Omni Hotel Fort Lauderdale – imagined

Date: August 2019

Location: Broward County, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, USA

Name: The expansion of the Broward County Convention Center and Omni Hotel Fort Lauderdale

No. of Keys: 800

Contractor: UK’s Balfour Beatty, founded in London in 1909, has signed a $780 million construction agreement with Matthews Southwest to serve as design-build lead for the expansion of the Broward County Convention Center and new construction of an 800-room, four-diamond Omni Hotel. With enabling projects underway, the project will significantly increase Broward County’s meetings, convention and exhibition capacity.

Located in Fort Lauderdale, the project will add more than 525,000 square feet of meeting space to the existing Broward County Convention Center. When complete, the expanded convention centre will feature over 1.2 million square feet of event space, including 350,000 square feet of contiguous exhibition space, a new 65,000-square-foot waterfront ballroom, the latest in technology, new dining concepts, enhanced water taxi access and an iconic waterfront plaza with public access.

The new 29-story Omni Hotel will feature 800 rooms, 73,000 square feet of meeting and ballroom space, multiple restaurant options including a rooftop bar, an 11,000-square-foot, full-service spa and fitness centre, and over 30,000 square feet of pool decks. The hotel will be prominently positioned along the destination’s famed Intracoastal Waterway with a scenic view of the Atlantic Ocean.

“Matthews Southwest is an expert in developing large-scale real estate projects that leave legacies of excellence for their clients and the communities they serve,” said Scott Skidelsky, president for Balfour Beatty’s buildings operations in Florida. “We’ve had the privilege of serving as Matthews Southwest’s construction partner on world-class projects in the past, including the Omni convention centre hotel in Dallas and a significant residential high-rise development in Miami, so we’re particularly honoured to once again be their partner in delivering this significant project for Broward County.”

Partnering with Stantec, Nunzio Marc DeSantis Architects and Fentress Architects, current enabling projects and site work will continue through the spring of 2020 with construction scheduled to conclude in the spring of 2023. The upgraded convention centre and hotel are designed to achieve LEED® Certified Gold criteria. The Balfour Beatty team will leverage the latest technologies, including building information modelling (BIM) and virtual reality technology, and lean construction methods, including target value design, to efficiently deliver the project.

THPT Comment: The UK should be proud on Balfour Beatty’s involvement with this project, as the UK’s largest building contractor…c’mon boys, please deliver on budget and on time!

First Seen: Hotel News Resource

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