Matthews Southwest Opens 801 Room Omni Hotel in Fort Lauderdale

Key Points

• Omni Hotels & Resorts has opened the 801-room Omni Fort Lauderdale Hotel, a new waterfront hospitality project.
• The 29-story hotel was developed by Jack Matthews and his firm, Matthews Southwest.
• The property includes 120,000 square feet of meeting and event space, six restaurants, and the largest ballroom in the city.

What the Omni Fort Lauderdale hotel includes

The Omni Fort Lauderdale Hotel has officially opened along the Intracoastal Waterway, adding a major hospitality asset to the city’s growing convention and tourism market. The 29-story tower delivers 801 guest rooms with waterfront views from nearly every level of the building. Designed to support large-scale conferences and tourism activity, the property includes more than 120,000 square feet of meeting and event space. The centerpiece is the 30,000 square foot Waterway Ballroom, making it one of the largest event venues in Fort Lauderdale. The hotel also features six dining venues, giving visitors a variety of restaurant and nightlife options inside the property.

What the location means for convention and cruise tourism

The hotel sits near several of Fort Lauderdale’s most important tourism drivers. Guests have direct access to the Broward County Convention Center, making the property a key hotel for large conferences and industry events. The site is also close to Port Everglades Cruise Terminal, one of the busiest cruise ports in the world, and only minutes from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. This positioning allows the hotel to capture demand from convention visitors, cruise travelers, and leisure tourists. As South Florida continues to grow as a global tourism hub, large convention hotels like this are becoming critical pieces of the local hospitality infrastructure.

What do amenities say about the luxury hotel positioning

The new property was designed as a flagship luxury hotel for Omni Hotels & Resorts in Florida, combining resort-style amenities with large-scale meeting facilities. Highlights include a pool deck overlooking the city and ocean, along with a full-service spa for guests. The hotel will also introduce the Ibis Sky Lounge, which will operate as the highest bar in Fort Lauderdale. Amenities like rooftop lounges and large outdoor pool areas are increasingly common in new Florida hotels as developers compete for travelers seeking experiential hospitality destinations.

What the development means for Fort Lauderdale’s hospitality growth

The project was developed by Matthews Southwest, with architecture by Nunzio Marc DeSantis Architects and Stantec, while Balfour Beatty served as the design builder. The opening marks another major milestone for Fort Lauderdale, which has seen a wave of new hotels, residential towers, and mixed-use developments tied to tourism and population growth. As convention activity expands and cruise traffic continues to increase at Port Everglades, projects like the Omni Fort Lauderdale Hotel position the city to capture a larger share of international travel and large-scale events. For developers and investors, the project highlights the continued demand for large convention hotels in high-growth coastal markets across Florida.