Florida guv, Seminoles pimp $1.8b resort expansion as reward for okaying compact

Florida Gov. Rick Scott and the Seminole Tribe have launched a public relations pitch aimed at garnering support for their $3.1b gaming compact.

On Monday, the Seminoles announced a $1.8b expansion plan for their marquee properties in Hollywood and Tampa. The tribe says the expanded venues will create thousands of jobs and become major tourist draws, but the expansion will only go ahead if the state legislature approves the compact the tribe and the governor signed in December.

In laying out the tribe’s expansion plan, Seminole Gaming CEO James Allen touted a 36-floor, 800-room hotel shaped like a guitar to complement a new Hard Rock café and four other new restaurants at the tribe’s Hollywood complex. The hotel will feature luxury cabanas that allow guests to walk straight from their rooms into a VIP pool.

Allen said the goal behind the project – which has an estimated completion date of summer 2018 – was to create “an integrated resort that’s not just about gaming.” Allen said the finished product would be an attraction to rival “not just anything here in the state of Florida, but Atlantis [in the Bahamas] and anything in the world.”