Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Pier 66 hotel to reopen Monday with new owner
FORT LAUDERDALE — A new chapter is unfolding at Fort Lauderdale’s iconic Pier 66 hotel along the Intracoastal Waterway.
On Monday, the landmark at 2301 SE 17th St., will reopen after Hurricane Irma damaged its 17-story tower building and forced the resort to close for more than a month.
The hotel, formerly operated as a Hyatt Regency, will also debut a new name — Pier Sixty-Six Hotel & Marina — as it becomes an independent property under the ownership of Tavistock Development Co.
The longtime Hyatt moniker was removed this week from the top of the hotel’s signature tower, where it resided for decades.
“Part of the roof of the tower [was] peeled up by the wind and we had some driving rain that went into the top of the tower,” Jim Zboril, Tavistock’s president told the Sun Sentinel Tuesday. “That [damage] has probably taken maybe 70 rooms out.”
The rooms, which suffered damage to drywall, carpeting and furnishings, will remain closed as Tavistock completes an assessment and finalizes a repair plan, Zboril said.
That plan will likely involve a complete renovation of the rooms, which was originally considered as part of a larger redevelopment program before Irma hit. Pier 66 has 384 rooms and suites in the tower and a pair of lanai-style two-story buildings.
For now, the focus is on reopening the hotel along with its main ballroom and food and beverage outlets in time for next month’s Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, Zboril said.
“We were fortunate in terms of damage that it is pretty isolated and to those rooms…but the marina received very little if any damage, so they’ve been open the whole time,” Tavistock spokeswoman Jessi Blakley said. “As of Monday as far as everyone will see, the large majority of the resort is open.”
A temporary website has also launched at pier66hotelmarina.com to accept bookings and market the rebranding.
“The Pier 66 name has good brand recognition,” Zboril said. “People, we think, know of the [hotel] as the Pier 66, so there’s a lot of brand equity there already.”
Interstate Hotels & Resorts will continue to manage the 22.7-acre hotel and marina complex so there will be employee and operational continuity.
Last December, an affiliate of Tavistock, an Orlando-based real estate development group, acquired the hotel and its 127-slip marina for $163.27 million with future plans to renovate and possibly redevelopment the project. The acquisition deal also included development entitlements to build 58 residential units in two 11-story buildings with 30,000 square feet of retail and office space.
At that time, Tavistock had entered into a temporary exten-