Pritzker would not confirm the land-acquisition deal but is on record with plans to open what could become the largest Hyatt Hotel in its chain by 2004, a 1,500-room inn directly adjacent to the four million-sf Orange County Convention Center and the 891-room Peabody Orlando Hotel, one of the area's earliest convention inns. Another 1,000-room addition is on the Hyatt drawing boards. GlobeSt.com reported that story Jan. 19.
GlobeSt.com learned today from area hospitality brokers that Pritzker plans to break ground by yearend. The estimated hard construction cost of the hotel is $30 million and will take two years to erect, construction industry estimators familiar with comparable projects tell GlobeSt.com. Pritzker would not confirm that number or the construction timeframe.
The ground-breaking would surpass rival Hilton Hotel Corp.'s plans by a year to build a 1,400-room, convention hotel in the immediate vicinity of the Hyatt project by 2005. The estimated construction cost of the Hilton venture is $28 million, according to area construction industry estimators.
Pritzker previously confirmed the new Hyatt Orlando hotel could be expanded by another 1,000 rooms in five to 10 years, making it the largest in the chain next to the existing 2,000-room Hyatt in Chicago.
The new Orlando Hyatt will have a 50,000-sf exhibit hall; a 43,000-sf grand ballroom with 14,000 sf for receptions outside the ballroom; and a 30,000-sf junior ballroom with an additional 7,000-sf of reception area, according to Pritzker.
The planned 1,500-room Hyatt would be the third largest convention hotel in metro Orlando, behind the 2,267-room Swan-Dolphin Resort complex at Walt Disney World and the 2,000-room Orlando World Center Marriott. Central Florida currently has 111,000 hotel and motel rooms, the largest in the nation, according to the Central Florida Hotel and Motel Association.
The $1.18 million price ($27.13 per sf) that Pritzker paid for the dirt is the going tag currently for dirt at prime pads along tourist-trafficked International Drive, according to area land brokers. Beverly Hills, CA-based Hilton Hotels, for example, paid Universal Orlando $26.4 million or $1 million per acre ($22.96 per sf) last summer for 26.4 acres south of the convention center expansion site.
National gasoline suppliers such as Exxon, Shell, Citgo and Chevron have paid up to $1 million for one-acre corner parcels on International Drive over the past five years, according to Orange County real estate records. Few of those parcels remain available today, however, area land brokers tell GlobeSt.com.
Other Hyatt hotels in metro Orlando are the 750-room Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress next to Walt Disney World; the 922-room Hyatt Orlando in Kissimmee, FL; and the 446-room Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport located in the main terminal.
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