The planned Reverb by Hard Rock Hotel at Community Maritime Park has a new design with a 7,000-square-foot event space that overlooks Blue Wahoos Stadium and Pensacola Bay.
Updated designs were approved unanimously by the Pensacola Planning Board on Dec. 9.
Under the new design, the 12-story hotel, which includes a three-level parking deck, will have 147 hotel rooms. The event space will be on the 11th floor, and a restaurant space will be on the top floor.
Both the restaurant and event space will have floor-to-ceiling glass windows to give panoramic views of the stadium and Pensacola Bay. The restaurant will also include an outdoor rooftop area overlooking the bay.
“We really want this to be a beacon to folks at the baseball stadium—as any hotel space, all the spaces are accessible to the public—for them to come enjoy, either before a game or after a game,” Lester Yuen, design director with Gensler architects, told the Planning Board on Dec. 9. “So everything we’ve done here is to encourage that.”
Next to the hotel is the Rythm Lofts, a 248-unit apartment building. The Rythm Lofts building will still be 16 floors, including the three-level parking deck, but will be about 10 feet shorter than the previous design. The building was made shorter by decreasing the floor-to-floor heights.
The project has been in planning phases for more than a year after Inspired Communities of Florida, also known as The Dawson Company, and Emmitt Smith’s E Smith Advisors, leased the property from the city. Earlier this year, Wisconsin billionaire businesswoman Diane Hendricks’ company, Corporate Contractors Inc., became a co-developer on the project.
The group is still in talks with the city about leasing the property adjacent to the site that is currently the Blue Wahoos Stadium parking lot. The proposal would combine the two developments with additional parking, restaurants and entertainment spaces.
Tamara Bowens, president and chief operating officer with The Dawson Company, told the News Journal the focus right now however is getting the hotel and apartment project under construction.
Bowens said the group is planning for construction to begin in the third quarter of 2026. CCI is hosting information fairs for subcontractors over the next few weeks at the Maritime Place office building to find qualified local contractors and suppliers who can work on the more than $200 million project. The meetings will take place at 8 a.m. on Dec. 22, Jan. 19 and Feb. 2.
As for the restaurant the hotel will have, Bowens said they are still looking for potential concepts but said it will be something entirely new for Pensacola.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Reverb Hard Rock Hotel plans event space, rooftop restaurant overlooking bay
Reporting by Jim Little, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
