[size=3][font=Times New Roman]Struggling with an aging property and glitzier competition, the 36-year-old Sonesta Beach Resort on Key Biscayne will be torn down and replaced with a hotel charging five-star rates, owner Sonesta International Hotels announced Tuesday. [/font][/size]
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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]The $300 million development project will be financed by advanced sales of the rooms as condo-hotel units, a strategy fueling much of the expansion of South Florida's hotel stock. Miami-based developer Fortune International will contribute $60 million to join Sonesta in building the hotel, slated to open in 2008 after two years of construction. [/font][/size]
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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]The 294-room oceanfront Sonesta has lost money since the 2001 terrorist attacks battered South Florida's tourism industry, just as a new crop of luxury hotels opened in the Miami area and peeled away the Sonesta's big-spending guests. [/font][/size]
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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]With a new Ritz-Carlton three minutes away and a Four Seasons across the Rickenbacker Causeway on Brickell Avenue, Sonesta decided it couldn't compete without the spacious rooms and modern amenities that come with building a hotel from scratch, company Chairman Roger Sonnabend said. [/font][/size]
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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]The hotel will stay open until its demolition slated for the second half of 2006. The venture promises to add another contender to Miami-DadeCounty's increasingly crowded collection of ultra-luxury hotels, a category created in 2000 when the Mandarin Oriental opened on Miami's Brickell Key. [/font][/size]
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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]And it comes as other aging South Florida icons to vacations past are being gutted or demolished in pursuit of more affluent hotel guests. [/font][/size]
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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]Fort Lauderdale's Yankee Clipper of Where the Boys Are fame is pursuing a $35 million to $50 million facelift, and wrecking balls are supposed to be bashing in part of the former Americana Hotel (now the SheratonBalHarbour) as part of a major upgrade. Downtown Miami's DupontPlaza hotel is in rubble to make way for a planned luxury hotel and condominium tower, and a Holiday Inn at 22 Street in Miami Beach will be demolished to make way for a swanky W resort. [/font][/size]
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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]The Sonesta Beach Resort underwent significant renovations after Hurricane Andrew battered Key Biscayne in 1992, forcing the hotel to close for 13 months. But the property still seemed dated at the start of the decade, and Sonesta spent $11 million on renovations in 2000 for a new spa, bathroom upgrades and lobby improvements. [/font][/size]