Ft. Lauderdale Expands Area Surrounding Conv. Ctr.

<B>Ft. Lauderdale Expands Area Surrounding Conv. Ctr.</B>

By Rowland Stiteler

With a year-to-date occupancy rate that was 26 points above the national average as of May 1, and new hotels under construction, the Fort Lauderdale hospitality business is off to a pretty good millennium already, but officials said that's nothing compared with what they expect next year.

"We've actually got four monumental pieces that will fall into place with regard to the Broward County Convention Center during 2001 that we expect to really propel things forward even further and faster," said Dennis Edwards, vice president for marketing and sales of the Broward County Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The events, which Edwards said will greatly increase the scope of the Fort Lauderdale meetings, conventions and trade show business, include the following: The February opening of the new 250-room Renaissance Hotel by Marriott across the street from the convention center; the September opening of the new 17th Street Bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway, also adjacent to the convention center, which will make it easy to walk from the convention center to the beachfront hotel district just to the east; the November opening of a $30 million expansion that will double the exhibit space in the convention center; and finally, in December, 2001, the expected opening of a new 500-room Westin Hotel on the grounds of the convention center.

"This last project will put us in an elite circle of cities that have a convention hotel on the property of the convention center, " said Nicki Grossman, president of the Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau. CVB officials said the key element the hotel brings is hotel rooms in close proximity to the convention center.

"As of today, we've got about 450 commitable rooms within a block of the convention center," said Dennis Edwards, vice president for marketing and sales for the Broward County CVB. "With the opening of the two hotels going up at or next door to the center, that number jumps up to a little over 1,100, which puts us on a different strata in terms of the type of convention and trade show groups we can attract to Fort Lauderdale. And if you expand that out to a mere half a mile from the convention center, it jumps up to more than 2,300 rooms."

Metro Fort Lauderdale, with about 29,000 hotel rooms, is experiencing vibrant growth in its hotel inventory, driven by an occupancy rate of 85.1 percent year-to-date as of May 1, compared with a national average of 59 percent, according to hotel research group Smith Travel Research of Hendersonville, Tenn.

Local industry veterans said the hotel growth is being driven by a multmillion-dollar taxpayer infrastructure investment--a street, sidewalk and recreation area redo of the beachfront area and an extensive renovation of Las Olas Boulevard, the downtown entertainment and dining district, completed late last year.

"I don't think it's a stretch at all to use the word 'renaissance' when you describe what has gone on in Fort Lauderdale in the recent past," said Greg Kurdian, president of Fort Lauderdale-based Sunbound Inc., one of Florida's largest destination management companies. "It's great to have viable options to offer groups now in my own backyard."

By year-end, a total of $2 billion will have been invested in Fort Lauderdale's recent infrastructure improvements, hotel construction and retail developments. The largest project is the $334 million expansion of Hollywood-Fort Lauderdale International Airport, which is less than five miles from the convention center.

Edwards said the expansion of the convention center will be the most high-tech of the projects. The newly expanded center will be wired with fiber-optic cable and have satellite uplink and downlink capabilities for nationwide videoconferencing.

"We'll have complete wireless capabilities within the convention center itself," he said. "Technology changes so fast that the setup is changing as the project moves along. But whatever the state of the art in communications technology is when the center opens, that's what we will have.