A Connecticut-based developer plans to build a nine-story hotel just east of downtown Fort Lauderdale and operate it under the Canopy by Hilton brand.
New Castle Hotels & Resorts won city approval Tuesday for the 172-room hotel one block east of Federal Highway and two blocks north of East Las Olas Boulevard.
New Castle paid $8.5 million in 2023 to acquire the three-parcel development site on the northeast corner of Southeast Eighth Avenue and Southeast Second Street in Fort Lauderdale. Two of the parcels are at 108 Southeast Eighth Avenue and are occupied by a parking lot and two low-rise commercial buildings. The other parcel is a parking lot on Southeast Second Street with no exact address.
New Castle is led by brothers Jeremy Buffam and Julian Buffam, who are partners in the firm.
In 2023, New Castle won a development order from the city to build an 11-story, 169-room hotel on the site. New Castle subsequently proposed an amended development order for a hotel that is two stories shorter and has three more rooms, among other changes. The Fort Lauderdale City Commission voted unanimously to approve the amended development order at its meeting on Tuesday night.
Ridgefield, Connecticut-based New Castle altered the hotel’s design to accommodate a change in its branding to Canopy by Hilton, Robert Lochrie, an attorney for New Castle, told city commissioners. The architectural firm that designed and redesigned the hotel is Fort Lauderdale-based Adache Group Architects.
In its original 11-story configuration, the hotel was going to be a dual-branded property operating under two flags in the Hilton family of brands, Homewood Suites and Tempo by Hilton, Lochrie said.
Lochrie’s Fort Lauderdale-based law firm, Chakas & Lochrie, successfully contended in a filing with the city that New Castle’s redesign of the hotel project “meets the overall intent” of the city’s master plan for downtown development. The Fort Lauderdale City Commission approved guidelines for complying with the downtown master plan in 2003 and updated them in 2007.
For example, the law firm asserted that New Castle’s redesign of the planned hotel complies with a master plan guideline encouraging high-rise developers to contribute to the overall composition of the downtown skyline. “The project is nestled behind multiple high-rises, and at nine stories, it will not be visible from most vantage points,” according to the law firm. “However, the entire building … is designed with projections and recessions in the façade, unique veneer cladding, and varying roof heights.”
Master plan guidelines also require developers to line the upper floors of parking garages with residential units and other “active uses.”
Chakas & Lochrie noted that New Castle is unable to line the upper floors of a parking garage that would be part of its hotel development. “Due to site constraints … lining the upper floors of the parking garage would create a substandard parking layout,” the law firm reported. “However, the upper floors of the parking garage are architecturally designed in a way to mimic the appearance of active uses.”
