Despite layoffs, Fontainebleau submits plans for expansion

Despite a historic slowdown in tourism that has lead to widespread layoffs, Miami Beach’s iconic Fontainebleau Resort is seeking approval to expand.

Jeffrey Soffer’s Fontainebleau Florida Hotel LLC was set to present plans Tuesday to the Miami Beach Historic Preservation Board for an additional five-story, 175,000square-foot building housing meeting and ballroom space. The board moved the item to its September meeting. The resort, a popular venue for weddings, galas and conferences, currently has 107,000 square feet of event space, according to its website.

The hospitality industry is struggling amid the pandemic, with Miami occupancy currently among the nation’s lowest, at about 30%, according to data firm STR. In April, the Fontainebleau’s $975 million commercial mortgagebacked securities loan entered special servicing, an indication that it was financially strapped. In July, the hotel announced more than 1,300 layoffs. The hotel sued the union and is requesting approval to not pay health insurance coverage for laid off employees.

The Fontainebleau declined to comment for this article.

The expansion site, at 4360 Collins Ave., now contains a parking lot. Plans call for a pedestrian bridge over West 44th

Street connecting to new building to the existing hotel.

Coral Gables-based architecture firm Nichols Brosch Wurst Wolfe & Associates, which designed the project, paid homage to the hotel’s Morris Lapidus midcentury design with tile inspired by Cuban architect Enrique Gutierrez and murals by Brazilian artist Francisco Brennand, whose work also adorns the Bacardi Building in Edgewater.

Lapidus, often photographed wearing one of his signature bow ties, is remembered with a bow tie design reflected on one of the exterior walls.

The new building would stack five stories above two underground levels with combined space of 58,339 square feet and a total of 263 parking spaces. Aboveground floors feature outdoor decks, lobby, conference rooms, two massive ballrooms and a commercial kitchen. The rooftop, designed for pre-event entertainment, spans 5,000 square feet.

The Fontainebleau was built in 1954. The first building was designed by Lapidus while the addition on the north, the Versailles Tower, built in 1959, was designed by Herbert Mathes. The hotel underwent an approximately $1 billion renovation and redevelopment in 2008.