Florida Trend | Florida's Business Authority

Travel Briefs - August 2006

? Orlando will be home to a Waldorf-Astoria, only the second in the world to be built from scratch as the Hilton chain expands the brand of the historic New York hotel. The 500-room hotel will share a site with a 1,000- room Hilton and a spa at Bonnet Creek, a new resort adjacent to Walt Disney World.

? Also at Bonnet Creek, Wyndham Worldwide is developing a 400-room Wyndham Lake Buena Vista Hotel and Spa along with a nine-tower Fairfield vacation ownership resort. Construction is set to start this year.

? The 1,500-room Rosen Shingle Creek resort next to the Orange County Convention Center opens in September. The resort will include a spa, a fitness center, four pools, volleyball, tennis and basketball courts and a nature trail along Shingle Creek. Introductory room rates are $99.39 a night.

? Construction starts this fall on the oceanfront St. Regis Resort & Residences, a "five-starplus" residential and hotel/condo property in Bal Harbour. The property is expected to open in mid-2009.

? The former Splendid China theme park site in Kissimmee and an adjacent 330-room Days Inn Maingate West Hotel at U.S. Highway 192 and State Road 429 were sold for an undisclosed price to Wooden Bridge Partners LLC and Wooden Bridge Partners GP LLC. An investment group led by Daryl M. Carter and Jeffrey R. Douglas paid $40.5 million for the 366-acre property a year ago. Splendid China closed at the end of 2003.