When he bought the Fontainebleau Miami Beach three years ago, real estate magnate Jeffrey Soffer said he had no plans to put a casino at the hotel.

That may all be changing. A quiet effort is under way to allow gambling at any Miami Beach hotel with more than 800 rooms. There is only one that currently qualifies: the Fontainebleau. Fontainebleau Resorts has also financed consumer research to see how the public feels about gambling in the area.

COO Howard Karawan insists that gambling was never part of the original plan for the nearly three-year, $500 million renovation, which includes 11 restaurants and bars, 200,000 square feet of meeting space, 1,500 guest rooms, and a 40,000-square-foot spa.

“Not one square inch of this place was designed with any thought of gambling,” Karawan told the Miami Herald.

Soffer maintains that the new push for gambling comes not from him but from a Miami developer who wants to bring a casino to a planned commercial complex downtown.

That developer is Marc Roberts, who with partner Art Falcone plans to build the 25-acre Miami Worldcenter. Roberts has spent more than $850,000 on a campaign to bring casinos to the development, with 13 petition-gathering companies on the payroll and lawyers writing an initiative for possible placement on the 2010 ballot.

At the same time Soffer, who is building the Fontainebleau Casino Resort on the Las Vegas Strip, has brought key staff with gaming experience to Miami, including former Mandalay Bay exec Glenn Schaeffer and Karawan, who worked for Kerzner International, owner of the Atlantis resort on Nassau Paradise Island.

By GGB Staff

Staff writers for Global Gaming Business magazine. Las Vegas, Nevada.