The Sunrise City Commission unanimously approved an agreement Tuesday for construction of an AC Hotel by Marriott next to the Sawgrass Mills shopping mall.
The hotel would likely be the first new hotel built in Sunrise in the last 15 years, Commissioner Joseph A. Scuotto said during Tuesday’s meeting.
Under their development agreement with the city of Sunrise, two affiliates of the mall’s owner, Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group, would build an eight-story AC Hotel by Marriott with at least 170 guest rooms and an adjacent parking garage.
The Simon affiliates, Sunrise Mills (MLP) Limited Partnership and Sawgrass Parking Deck, LLC, would build the hotel and parking garage on a 1.3-acre site about 300 feet west of Sawgrass Mills Circle, between Dolphin Boulevard and Purple Parrot Place.
The development agreement requires Simon to build the rooftop of the hotel with a water feature, a food and beverage service and fitness facilities. The agreement also requires the hotel to have a 50-seat restaurant with daily breakfast service, a ground-level bar with seating for 50 customers, and at least 2,500 square feet of meeting space that can accommodate 200 people.
Under the development agreement, Simon also would build the hotel with exhibit space for works by local artists and with a curtainwall façade at lower levels of the structure.
City staff will prepare an amendment to Sunrise’s land development code to address Simon’s request for relief from some of the code’s requirements for hotel construction, including a minimum of 250 guest rooms, a minimum meeting-space capacity of 350 people, and a full-service restaurant with seating for 100 people that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner daily.
The hotel next to Sawgrass Mills mall would be the third in South Florida and the first in Broward County with the AC Hotel by Marriott brand. Neighbors tried to block the development of a proposed AC hotel in Fort Lauderdale Beach last year.
Miami-Dade County has two AC hotels in Aventura and Miami Beach.