The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood is an integrated resort in Broward County, Florida, United States, part of the Miami/Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area, located on of the Hollywood Reservation of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. , the property has three hotel towers, a casino, large poker room, and a lagoon-style pool facility.
A large expansion was completed in October 2019, adding The Guitar Hotel, designed and constructed to resemble a Gibson Les Paul guitar hence the name. The expansion also involved the replacement of Seminole Paradise with The Shoppes at The Guitar Hotel, and the opening of a 7,000-seat Hard Rock Live to replace the smaller 5,500-seat arena of the same name.
History 2000–2005: Planning, construction, and opening
In early 2000, CEO David S. Cordish of the Baltimore, Maryland-based Cordish Companies partnered with Chairman James E. Billie of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and Cordish formed an affiliate with Coastal Development, LLC, called Power Plant Entertainment, LLC. After several negotiations and background checks, the Seminole Tribe officially signed two major contracts with the Cordish Cos. in July of that year, which included a developer agreement to build casino hotels in Hollywood and Tampa, and a "financial services engagement letter" to support project funding.
Power Plant Entertainment formally signed on to develop the complexes under a joint venture with Hard Rock Cafe International, Inc.'s then-parent company, The Rank Group Plc. On January 8, 2001, leaders gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony around a giant sand sculpture of a guitar, and the initial budget announced for the Hollywood and Tampa complexes was $400million. The Orlando-based Hard Rock Cafe was designed to run the trademark restaurants, retail shops, and music memorabilia curation, while the Seminole Tribe retained complete responsibility for operating the casino floors. The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Hollywood was planned to absorb and phase out the Seminole Tribe's lower scale bingo halls and gaming halls they were operating at the time. The timeline of construction encountered problems when in mid-2001, the Seminole Tribal Council voted to suspend Jim Billie, which briefly stalled project momentum, and general tribal voting over the summer of that year adjusted the exact terms of the Cordish deal, intentionally extending the projected construction timeline by an extra six months.
The final proposal was planned to span across on the northern edge of the Hollywood Reservation adjacent to their existing gaming facility at U.S. Route 441 and Stirling Road, with of dedicated gaming space configured to hold 2,000slot machines and 65 table games, and Hard Rock Live, a 1,000-seat indoor live entertainment and concert arena utilizing Cordish's Live! concept taken from Power Plant Live! (hence the name "Power Plant" Entertainment, LLC). The complex would feature a total of 12distinct restaurants, anchored by a flagship multi-level Hard Rock Cafe venue, a conference layout centered around an grand ballroom divided into eight sections, and a lagoon-style pool facility featuring a lakeside beach club, water slides, a health spa, and a central poolside bar. The hotel would be a 17-story tower designed to house 750guest rooms and suites, and parking infrastructure designed to hold over 2,600vehicles, split between a 1,600car multi-level parking garage and a 1,000-space surface lot. Financing for the projects was secured via the sale of $315million worth of Capital Trust Agency Revenue bonds by the Seminoles in May 2002 to begin full physical construction.
Construction was managed by the Tutor Perini Building Corp., and Klai Juba Architects was hired to design the integrated resort. The contract amount was $147million. Prior to the opening of the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, the Tampa location began operation on March 11, 2004. Rank already had an existing Hard Rock Cafe location in Broward County, being the Sawgrass Mills location in Sunrise, which opened on July 7, 1999; to avoid cannibalization, that location permanently closed its doors on May 9, 2004. The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino had its grand opening celebration and ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 11of that year, with Huey Lewis and the News serving as the headline musical performers for the celebration, alongside the appearance of celebrities and rock stars, including Adam Gaynor of Matchbox Twenty, and it quickly became South Florida's premier gaming hub, pulling immense crowds eager to experience the casino floor and second-story cafe.
Within the resort's first year of operation, it approached $500million of combined revenue alongside its Tampa sister. Both casinos had to rely on "Class II" video bingo machines, which resembled and functioned like Vegas slot machines because Florida had not yet signed a formal table game compact with the tribe at the time.
2004–2010: Contract dispute and corporate litigation On December 30, 2004, then-real estate mogul Donald J. Trump of Trump Entertainment Resorts filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Cordish in the Broward County Circuit Court citing fraud and a breach of fiduciary duty, alleging that his former associate, Richard T. Fields and Cordish had secretly "stolen" his proprietary plans and excluded him from the massive Florida deal.
In 2006, Florida circuit judge Jeffrey Streitfeld reprimanded Trump's legal team for failing to produce internal email servers from the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the plaintiff argued that they had no central email servers during the years they accused Cordish of leaving them out. In May 2008, the lawsuit was settled amid the Great Recession, when Fields agreed to acquire Trump Marina in Atlantic City, New Jersey for $316million and rebrand it into Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, but the lawsuit was requested to be revived in October 2009. Concurrent with Trump Entertainment Resorts navigating its Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring plan, the court dismissed the litigation with prejudice in 2010, with no action taken against Trump or Cordish.
Parallel to the Trump litigation, in October 2005, the Seminole Tribe sued Power Plant Entertainment in federal court to terminate their original agreement, labeling it an "illegal and unconscionable contract" and arguing that the payout structure, which made them pay the developers 30% of net gaming profits over 10years and 30% of hotel profits over 15, was ultimately forcing them to pay Cordish $2.2billion "for doing absolutely nothing" after the properties were completed. However, The Cordish Companies bypassed the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) caps as the initial 2000deal strictly allowed them to develop and consult the resorts, rather than manage them. Per an announcement on May 23, 2006, the Seminoles would continue to pay Cordish until a settlement happens.
Then, on December 7, 2006, the Seminole Tribe announced that they would acquire Hard Rock Cafe International from the Rank Group for $965million. Furious regarding the previous contract dispute, The Cordish Companies countersued the Seminole Tribe on January 3, 2007, alongside Hard Rock Cafe International, alleging that they and their financial backer, Goldman Sachs & Co., were locked out of the deal as Rank and the Seminoles negotiated for seven months, securing promises that the management would stay in place and receiving additional financial incentives after the buyout. Furthermore, Cordish was planning to offer Rank a higher purchase price to acquire Hard Rock.
On March 2 of that year, a financial settlement was formed; S&P Global Ratings disclosed that the Seminole Tribe agreed to loan Power Plant Entertainment $525million and pay the company $10.5million annually for 22years. On April 19of that year, all claims by the Seminoles and Cordish were dropped, with the tribe acknowledging the original developer fees as "fair and equitable," while Cordish pulled back from the bid-rigging claims, citing they determined no collusion has occurred, allowing the tribe to complete its acquisition of Hard Rock and merge it under a single umbrella known as Hard Rock International.
2013–2019: Renovations and expansion
In 2013, the resort rebranded its popular summer poker tournament series into the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open (SHRPO). On May 9, 2014, to celebrate the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino's 10th anniversary, Jim Billie announced a $100million property upgrade of the tribe's casinos, with the majority of spent on the Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood location, including improved entryways, center pool bar, pool facility upgrades, updated hotel room and suite interiors, and a new restaurant called Kuro Japanese Craft Kitchen, which would open by late March 2015.
On February 1, 2016, the Seminole Tribe announced the addition of a 800-room hotel in the shape of a Gibson Les Paul guitar on the property. and about $100million in updates to the pool area. This proposal, which would cost $1.5billion, was extended and modified on October 25, 2017, featuring the addition of 806suites and guestrooms, and 638in the 35-story Guitar Hotel, increasing the total number to over 1,300. of retail and restaurant space would be added, alongside a business center, a spa, and a completely rebuilt Hard Rock Live arena for $100million. The groundbreaking ceremony held for the expansion featured a guitar smash with Steven Van Zandt. Steve Peck of Klai Juba Wald Architects returned to design the expansion, and Suffolk-Yates served as the general contractor. Hard Rock Cafe would close its doors on November 26, 2018as part of a relocation within the resort, which immediately opened the following day with a triangle-shaped bar.
The expansion had its grand opening celebration on the night of October 24, 2019 and continued through October 25, marking the official debut of the Guitar Hotel's nightly light show, where its built-in LED strings and high-powered outdoor laser beams shot miles into the South Florida sky, programmed to change colors and move in sync with a dramatic musical score. Unlike the initial 2004opening, the expansion debut did not feature a ribbon-cutting ceremony, but guitar smashing event, where tribal leaders, Hard Rock executives, including Seminole Gaming CEO and Hard Rock International Chairman Jim Allen, and prominent celebrities destroyed a row of acoustic guitars simultaneously, accompanied by an outdoor fireworks display. The event also included the appearances of Johnny Depp, Morgan Freeman, Khloé Kardashian, and Scott Disick. A seven-story, mid-rise hotel known as the Oasis Tower also opened, featuring an additional 168 guest rooms and swim-up suites, and a specialized water curtain known as the Oculus, designed by the Rockwell Group and inspired by the Cyanometer.
2020–present As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the resort temporarily closed to the public on March 20, 2020 and reopened on June 12under the implementation of Hard Rock's rigorous "Safe + Sound" social distancing guidelines.
By January 7, 2021, over $615million in jackpots were awarded at the casino. That year, the Seminole Tribe signed a historic 30-year gaming compact with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and on May 25, 2023, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) granted the Guitar Hotel trademark protection. However, on December 18, 2024, only the was trademarked, but the light strings were not because they were deemed "too common," despite the Seminole Tribe arguing that the light beams should be trademarked even when they are unattached to a guitar. In May 2024, the resort celebrated its 20th anniversary with commemorative art from locals.
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