Nov. 22–WINTER HAVEN — Legoland Florida General Manager Adrian Jones, elected officials and tourism leaders donned yellow hard hats and gripped shovels with shiny gold blades for a symbolic photo Thursday morning.
As Jones made clear, this wasn’t a typical ground-breaking ceremony.
“We don’t break earth here,” Jones said. “We break bricks.”
The invited guests, including Winter Haven Mayor J.P. Powell, three Polk County commissioners and a state representative and senator, dug into a pile of multicolored Lego bricks and tossed them into the air.
The gesture culminated an announcement that Jones happily described as “the worst-kept secret in Central Florida.” He revealed that the 2-year-old attraction plans to construct a Lego-themed hotel with an opening date of early to mid-2015.
The four-story, 152-room hotel will enable Legoland to draw guests for overnight stays rather than just day trips from Orlando, Jones said. Legoland leaders have said since before the park opened in October 2011 that they eventually would build a hotel but had not previously set a date.
The L-shaped hotel, including a pool and a restaurant, will be built in the southwest section of the park between the pedestrian entrance and the shore of Lake Eloise. Thursday’s ceremony at the pre-construction site took place beside the remnants of an animal exhibit from Legoland’s predecessor, Cypress Gardens.
A figure of a red-coated doorman made of Lego bricks stood beside the platform as Jones addressed the audience. Jones offered few details about the design of the hotel but said it will be “heavily Lego-themed.” A poster on display at the announcement showed an artist’s rendering of a brightly colored structure with a tower apparently made of Lego bricks standing near the entrance.
“In my opinion, it will be the most beautiful Legoland hotel in the most beautiful Legoland park in the world,” Jones said, “far superior to any other Legoland hotel we’ve ever built in terms of location.”
Jones said the hotel will be designed so that many rooms have views of Lake Eloise.
Jones declined to give a cost for the project. But he said the financial commitment by Merlin Entertainments Group, Legoland’s England-based corporate owner, reflects the fact that Legoland Florida has been so successful in its first two years of operation.
The project will generate 250 to 300 construction jobs, Jones said, many of them to local contractors, and the completed hotel will employ 250 or more people. He said Legoland currently has 1,350 employees in its peak season when the water park is open.
The plan puts Legoland Florida on a much faster pace to build an on-site hotel than the only other Legoland in the United States, Legoland California. That attraction opened in 1999 and added a hotel only earlier this year.
But Legoland Florida faces a different dynamic. It is located within an hour of Walt Disney World and the Orlando-area tourism corridor, which offers an abundance of modern hotels.
Jones has long emphasized the need for more and better lodging near Legoland. He has said that about 80 percent of the park’s out-of-town visitors stay in Orlando area hotels.
A report released last fall by a tourism consulting firm found that two-thirds of Polk County’s lodgings were built before 1980 and nearly 44 percent were built before 1960.
Jones urged those in attendance to consider how children will view the prospect of staying in a hotel on Legoland property.
“What an ultimate experience to wake up in the world’s largest Legoland,” he said. “That is hugely powerful and something we’ve seen time and time again with our other hotels (in Legoland parks).”
Jones seemed confident Legoland will get the environmental permits it needs for the construction project. A contingent from Legoland has had preliminary discussions with regulators at the Southwest Florida Water Management District, a spokeswoman for the agency said.
The future hotel site, hidden from the view of Legoland guests by a solid fence, has not been used since Legoland opened. The 10-acre site includes patches of oak and palm trees, and Jones said Legoland will leave as many of those trees in place as possible. He said the hotel will be designed to allow future expansion.
“We knew the old zoo area would make a great location for the positioning of the hotel,” Jones said. “It will be positioned right next to the main entrance, so you will create this incredible arrival where guests walk into the park and have this magnificent, four-story hotel right beside the turnstiles.”
County Commissioners Melony Bell, Todd Dantzler and George Lindsey were among those invited to grab gold shovels for the brick-tossing photo opportunity. Bell chairs the Polk County Tourist Development Council, which oversees distribution of tourism tax money.
“I am very excited about today, with the hotel opening — not only the jobs it’s going to be creating but bringing people to Polk County to stay,” Bell said. “Just the economic impact it’s going to have on Polk County and the tourist development tax, the heads-in-beds tax, if you think about that, we’re going to be able to take that money and reinvest it as we market Polk County as a destination.”
Jones said Legoland leaders have worked closely with local elected officials and have kept them informed of the plans to construct a hotel.
Florida Sen. Kelli Stargel,R-Lakeland, also took part in the ceremonial brick shoveling. Stargel, a sixth-generation native Floridian, said she recalled visiting Cypress Gardens when the animal show operated at the site of Thursday’s event.
“I think it’s going to be fabulous,” Stargel said of the planned hotel. “People will come stay here and then they’re going to go eat out at our local restaurants and shop around here. It’s very good for the economy.”
As media members and guests were leaving the event, a worker in an excavator used its bucket to pull down concrete seats and light poles from what remained of a small amphitheater.
Jones said he expects construction of the Legoland hotel to be a “catalyst” for further developments in the area.
“The most significant thing is it that it will underline our intentions to move from a day visitor attraction to being a resort destination,” Jones said, “and it’s a massive step for the local economy as well, in the context of driving, I suppose, a little bit more momentum behind potential developers coming here.”
[ Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. ]
