The Fontainebleau plans to spend $5 million on a grand opening that includes a Victoria's Secret lingerie show broadcast around the world. But first, the hotel actually needs to open.

Construction delays have top executives sweating the completion of a $500 million renovation that so far has missed every announced deadline. Originally scheduled to open in July, then September, then October, the oceanfront hotel has stopped making predictions and only promises it will be ready for the Nov. 15 show.

The scrapped openings were costly: More than a dozen conferences and conventions were booked in the hotel for later summer and fall events, and canceling them had the Fontainebleau paying undisclosed amounts to move the meetings to other South Florida hotels.

But no booking carries more importance to the rehabbed hotel than the Victoria's Secret FashionShow.

A May announcement of the event describes it as ''the sexiest night on television,'' with Heidi Klum, Miranda Kerr, Adriana Lima and other models slated to don Victoria's Secret lingerie and prance down a runway on the Fontainebleau grounds at 4441 Collins Ave. in Miami Beach. CBS plans to film the event for a Dec. 3 airing, with rebroadcasts internationally after that.

Howard Karawan, the Fontainebleau's top executive, negotiated the deal, which he said will cost the hotel more than $2 million in production and logistic expenses, including complimentary rooms and meals for the cast, crew and visiting celebrities. That's on top of the roughly $2.5 million being spent on weekend festivities, including an opening bash Friday and Saturday's runway show celebration.

He described the publicity as priceless: some of the country's best-known models sashaying down a catwalk with the Fontainebleau's signature building as a backdrop.

Since its television debut six years ago, the lingerie giant's annual show has taken place in New York; Cannes, France; and Los Angeles, its home for for the past three years. The script this year will partly revolve around its setting: a 1954 hotel once popular with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

''This year's theme is really the return to glamour, because of the iconic history of the Fontainebleau,'' said executive producer Monica Mitro.

Karawan sees it as a perfect coming-out party for a former Hilton long seen as a faded relic of 1950s Miami Beach. ''It's huge for us,'' he said.

Producers plan to film models on the hotel's grounds, including the spa, as well as segments with them on Lincoln Road and on the beach. ``The announcers are going to be talking about the Fontainebleau.''

He said the Victoria's Secret show cannot go on without the temporary occupancy permit from Miami Beach the Fontainebleau needs to open. And to secure that, the hotel needs to finish up most of the construction work that began when the main building closed its doors in March 2006.

Karawan said he isn't worried, that progress is on track.

''In my career, I've opened up 21 hotels,'' he said. ``You just kind of feel it.''

A quick tour of the Fontainebleau this week revealed a construction site with workers visible at nearly every turn. Cleanup crews were buffing the lobby's bowtie floors designed by original architect Morris Lapidus, others laid cement walkways from a new glass spa to the elaborate pool deck created where the old pool once stood.

In all, about 1,200 workers report to the site each day, Karawan said. He said hurricane scares last month compounded hold-ups from the sheer scope of the renovations launched by Jeffrey Soffer when he bought the hotel in 2005.

The Victoria's Secret crew soon will undertake a construction project themselves, building a six-story stage and spectator gallery with room for about 1,000 people.

Mitro, the executive producer, said the Fontainebleau delays haven't fazed her.

''We're used to this kind of pressure in putting together a production,'' she said. ``There's always risks in anything we do.''

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