Balfour Beatty wins contract for US convention centre expansion

Balfour Beatty's US Construction business has signed a construction agreement with Matthews Southwest to serve as design-build lead for the expansion of the Broward County Convention Centre and new construction of an 800-room, four-diamond Omni Hotel.

The Fort Lauderdale project will add more than 525,000 square feet of meeting space to the existing convention centre. Upon completion, it will feature over 1.2 million square feet of event space, including 350,000 square feet of contiguous exhibition space, a new 65,000-square-foot waterfront ballroom, the latest in technology, new dining concepts, enhanced water taxi access and an iconic waterfront plaza with public access.

The new 29-story Omni Hotel will feature 800 rooms, 73,000 square feet of meeting and ballroom space, multiple restaurants, a rooftop bar, an 11,000-square-foot, full-service spa and fitness centre, and over 30,000 square feet of pool decks. The hotel will be prominently positioned along the destination’s famed Intracoastal Waterway with a scenic view of the Atlantic Ocean.

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“Matthews Southwest is an expert in developing large-scale real estate projects that leave legacies of excellence for their clients and the communities they serve,” said Scott Skidelsky, president for Balfour Beatty’s buildings operations in Florida. 

“We’ve had the privilege of serving as Matthews Southwest’s construction partner on world-class projects in the past, including the Omni convention center hotel in Dallas and a significant residential high-rise development in Miami, so we’re particularly honored to once again be their partner in delivering this significant project for Broward County.”

Partnering with Stantec, Nunzio Marc DeSantis Architects and Fentress Architects, current enabling projects and site work will continue through the spring of 2020 with construction scheduled to conclude in the spring of 2023. The upgraded convention centre and hotel are designed to achieve LEED® Certified Gold criteria. The Balfour Beatty team will leverage the latest technologies, including building information modeling (BIM) and virtual reality technology, and lean construction methods, including target value design, to efficiently deliver the project.