Brickell is getting a new boutique hotel. Its architect designed the World Trade Center
A 1960s Brickell Avenue landmark is getting a new life — as a hotel.
The Colonnade Plaza, a modernist office building designed by World Trade Center architect Minoru Yamasaki, will be transformed into a boutique hotel, according to plans submitted to the City of Miami’s Building Department and conversations with two construction workers and a security guard on site.
The building’s owner, downtown Miami-based Florida East Coast Realty, declined to comment. According to the city’s building department, the firm’s development manager Philip Dahan submitted plans.
The hotel will house a total of 95 rooms and an outdoor pool on the ground floor of the building, according to plans submitted to the city and conversations with construction workers on site. Guests will be within walking distance to Brickell City Centre and Mary Brickell Village.
The renovation will cost about $4 million, according to The Next Miami, which first reported the story.
Less than a handful of tenants remain on the second floor of the building, according to construction workers on the site. All of the other floors are undergoing renovations.
A CVS Pharmacy sits on the first floor. It will remain at its current location, according to a spokesperson for CVS. The developer is adding two adjacent retail spaces on the ground floor, according to plans submitted to the city.
When the 8-story building at 1201 Brickell Ave. was built for Mutual of Omaha insurance company in 1968, the business district was in its infancy.
Today it is dwarfed by the surrounding financial district towers.
In addition to the World Trade Center, Yamasaki designed Seattle’s Rainier Tower, Los Angeles’ Fairmont Century Plaza hotel — often frequented by Ronald Reagan — and Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs building. The Seattle native was known for his new formalist style, often combining symmetrical projects with classical touches, including Romanesque columns and colonnades.
The conversion is part of a national trend. JFK Airport’s 1962 TWA terminal designed by Eero Saarinen reopened just before the pandemic in early 2019 as a highly lauded hotel.
The hotel industry is resting a bit easier after the pandemic dropped occupancy to levels even lower than post 9/11. Travel has since rebounded, with Miami-Dade occupancy reaching almost 50% this winter, according to tracking firm STR.
