The developer behind the Kosher House hotel that recently started construction across from the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood has proposed a mixed-use project in the area that features a second kosher hotel.
The city’s Technical Advisory Committee will consider plans for the Plaza 441 on Oct. 4. Local developer Sharon Sharaby has the 2.06-acre site at 5300 S. State Road 7/U.S. 441 under contract from Daniel A. Jaramillo. The property is currently a parking lot outside a self-storage facility. It’s east of the guitar-shaped Seminole Hard Rock hotel.
The 16-story building would total 660,923 square feet, with 200 hotel rooms, 64 condos, 49,975 square feet of offices, 22,726 square feet of retail, 14,272 square feet of restaurants and a 582- space parking garage.
Sharaby said the hotel would be a Wyndham Grand and it would also be kosher, with elevators operating automatically on Shabbat and kosher food for Jewish customers. Of course, any customers could stay there and restaurant tenants outside the hotel wouldn’t be limited to kosher restaurants.
This comes as Sharaby recently broke ground on the Wyndham Dolce Kosher House Hotel on a neighboring site.
Making a kosher hotel at Plaza 441 allows him to reach a wider group of customers and it’s a “mitzvah” – a positive commandment, Sharaby said. Non-religious customers won’t notice a difference, he says.
The hotel rooms will rent for less than half of what it costs for a room across the street at the Seminole Hard Rock, he added. Hotel rates at the Hard Rock currently start at $279 a night. “‘To some people, the casino is the ocean – they want to wake up in the morning and see the casino,” Sharaby said. “Disney is the children’s playground and U.S. 441 will be the adult’s playground.”
As for the condos, they will be flexible for short-term rentals and Wyndham could manage them for the condo owners, he said. The condos will be about 1,600 square feet each and be priced over $1 million each, Sharaby said. While that’s more expensive than most condos in west Hollywood, Sharaby said they will have much lower association fees than a typical condo because the amenities of the mixed-use building will be funded by the other uses, such as the hotel, retail and offices.
Sharaby said it’s a good location for offices as well because there’s great name exposure across from the busy casino, plus, plenty of law firms and fnancial companies do business with the casino.
Under the design by Hollywood-based Kaller Architects, the Plaza 441 would have retail on the ground floor, a restaurant on the second floor, parking on floors two through five, offices on the sixth floors, the hotel on floors eight through 12 and condos on floors 13 through 16. There would be an escalator from the parking garage down to the first-floor retail. The hotel amenity deck on the sixth floor would feature a pool, a gym, a spa and a restaurant. There would also be a sky lounge for condo owners on the top floor.
Sharaby said the project would cost about $70 million to build. If approved, he hopes to break ground in late 2022.