Trending
Hawks Cay Resort to renovate guest rooms, add new restaurants after Hurricane Irma
177-room resort will reopen in phases, starting with a soft opening during Q2 2018
Hawks Cay Resort, which has been shuttered since Hurricane Irma, will redesign its main lobby and all 177 guestrooms prior to its full reopening before the end of next summer.
The renovations were not planned, but the resort is taking advantage of reconstruction to revamp the property, Sheldon Suga, managing director of the resort on the Middle Keys island of Duck Key, said in a statement.
The 60-acre resort is located on the Atlantic side of the Florida Keys near mile marker 61, about 10 miles from the city of Marathon, and in an area that was hard hit by Irma’s storm surge.
Hawks Cay said it will reopen in phases, starting with a soft opening during the second quarter of next year. The hotel declined to spell out precisely what portions of the property will open then, but did say that the Calm Waters Spa and the Angler & Ale waterfront restaurant are among the amenities that will come online around that time.
A grand reopening is expected during the third quarter of next year.
Along with lobby and room redesigns, the renovations will bring a new restaurant as well as a new casual eatery. Alma, the Hawks Cay fine dining restaurant before Irma, will close, a resort spokesperson told The Real Deal.
The resort declined to offer any details on the storm damage to the property and said it does not yet know how much the renovation will cost.
Dallas-based Looney and Associates has been selected as the design firm for the project and HKS Architects, which has offices in Miami, will handle the architectural plans. Hawks Cay is managed by Connecticut-based HEI Hotels & Resorts.
Last month Hawks Cay laid off 260 employees, according to a document on the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity website. HEI has hired some of those staff members at its resorts in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, as well as in destinations from New Orleans to Vermont, it said.
As of last week, about 75 percent of hotel rooms in the Florida Keys were on line in the wake of Irma, according to a spokesperson for the Monroe County Tourist Development Council. In the Marathon vicinity, about 50 percent of rooms were on line.