NEW YORK— The Seminole Tribe of Florida has closed on $315 million in bond financing that will fund the construction of the Tribes Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Resort projects on its Hollywood and Tampa Reservations, creating as many as 2,500 construction jobs and 5,000 permanent jobs. Both projects are expected to open in first-quarter 2004. The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Resort in Hollywood will be built along U.S. 441 and include convention facilities, a health spa and beach club, gaming facilities, and a retail and entertainment complex featuring restaurants, nightclubs and specialty retail shops. A full-service health spa will feature a full-line weight and fitness room, steam and sauna room, hot tub, salon, massage, facials and body care. The pool and beach club will offer beaches, private cabanas, water slides, a lazy river and a poolside bar and restaurant. The complex also will include a Hard Rock Cafe, Hard Rock retail store and a 1,500-seat Hard Rock Live entertainment venue, which will feature national musical acts. The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel in Tampa will include a spa, gaming facility, restaurants, three lounges including a sports bar, a live entertainment venue and nightclub, a Hard Rock retail store, a pool complex with a restaurant and bar and meeting room facilities. The projects are being developed on behalf of the Tribe by the Cordish Co., Baltimore, MD, and constructed by a joint venture of Perini Building Co., Inc. and Suitt Construction. The two companies recently completed construction of the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Orlando, FL. Hard Rock Cafe International, a unit of Rank Group Plc, currently oversees full-service hotels in Orlando, Bali and Thailand, with a fourth planned for Chicago.
