The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, the fourth-largest casino in the nation, has proposed building the second-largest hotel in Hillsborough County, Florida at its Tampa casino location—a 1.2 million-square-foot, 16-floor tower with 537 rooms. The Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel & Marina is the largest downtown Tampa hotel with 27 floors and 719 rooms.
Seminole Tribe spokesman Gary Bitner said, “It’s still very early in the process and no formal approval has been given by the tribal council of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. It would certainly be wonderful to come out and say this is going to be a great thing for Tampa Bay, and maybe it will be at some point, but it’s too early to get on that bandwagon.”
Upon completion of the proposed hotel, the second hotel to be built at the Hard Rock complex, the facility would have a total of 817 rooms. The project also would increase gaming space at the most lucrative of the Seminole Tribe’s seven Florida casinos.
Bitner said the tribe had not decided whether it will pursue other proposed amenities that were proposed when the Tampa Bay area and the country were deep in recession.
