AC Hotel in Fort Lauderdale nabs city approval

Fort Lauderdale city commissioners approved site plans for Fort Lauderale Beach’s first AC Hotel by Marriott with a 4-1 vote early Wednesday morning.

The next step for the hotel, which will be built on a roughly three-quarter-acre site on Alhambra Street, is to seek building permits. OTO Development, a South Carolina real estate company and the project lead, expects to break ground in early 2016. Plans are for a 10-story building with 175 rooms, a fifth-floor pool and tapas-style restaurant.

The developer will build its hotel on three joined parcels at 3017, 3021 and 3029 Alhambra Street, which it is under contract to purchase for a price in the neighborhood of $9 million, said Dan Teixeira, a Douglas Elliman agent. Two of those lots house a small apartment building and a boutique hotel, while the third is vacant.

An aerial view of the three parcels where OTO will build its AC Hotel by Marriott. The right-most parcel, which is shown to hold a house, was razed by its owners.

Teixeira was originally hired as a listing agent for the vacant land at 3029 Alhambra Street. The ownership had attempted to build a Vintro-branded hotel there, but were shot down by commissioners over density concerns.

Knowing the lot’s backstory, Teixeira said, he decided to solicit a developer and a handful of neighboring properties in hopes of kickstarting a new project. The two neighboring lots and OTO Development later threw their hats in.

AC Hotels by Marriott is a “lifestyle” brand that first launched in Europe. It’s typically select service, meaning certain amenities like full-service restaurants or banquet facilities are omitted from the hotels. It’s geared more toward millennials than Marriott’s other lines like Residence Inn, which is oriented toward business travelers, or the luxury Ritz-Carlton brand, which comes with a higher price point.