HallDSi leads Marriott World Center Expansion; February 6, 2020

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A rendering of the newly proposed meeting space at the Marriott Orlando World Center hotel.
A rendering of the newly proposed meeting space at the Marriott Orlando World Center hotel. (DLR Group)

The world’s largest Marriott hotel wants to get even bigger.

Bethesda, Maryland-based Host Hotels & Resorts, the owners of the 200-acre Orlando World Center Marriott hotel, just submitted plans in Orange County seeking to add 60,000 square feet of meeting space and an aquatic park with three new slides.

The 2,009-room resort at 8701 World Center Dr. already features 450,000 square feet of event space as well as two 200-foot waterslides and one 90-foot speed slide at its main pool-area, Falls Pool Oasis.

A conceptual site plan shows the additional meeting space will extend southward from the hotel’s current exhibit hall. The undertaking would require encroaching onto World Center Drive and some golf course fairways, meaning the developers would have to construct some new roadway and golf cart paths.

A conceptual site plan of the 60,000-square-feet of new meeting space and new aquatic park at Marriott Orlando World Center.
A conceptual site plan of the 60,000-square-feet of new meeting space and new aquatic park at Marriott Orlando World Center. (Orange County)

Meeting room spaces are divided into eight rooms roughly 3,600 square feet each.

The submitted plans also depict a new water park with a lazy river component. Slides mentioned in plans include an Aqua Sphere slide, a Boomerango waterslide and a waterslide with a tailspin element.

The waterpark would rise around the resort’s current health club and spa, plans show.

Jim Hall of HDSi is the planner for the expansion.  Brad Barneson of the Atlanta-based development services firm, The Hardy Group, is representing Host Hotels in the project. DLR Group is the architect and Richard Lis of Harris Civil Engineers is the civil engineer.

In 2015, the owners embarked on a $4.5 million renovation plan that called for upgrading and expanding its function space and revamping its 8,400-square-foot spa building.

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Representatives at Host Hotels were not immediately available to comment.

Amenities at the Orlando World Center Marriott hotel include the 18-hole Hawk’s Landing Golf Club golf course, a luxury spa and fitness center, and nine restaurants and lounges.

In recent months, GrowthSpotter reported on another proposed development within the Marriott World Center Planned Development area. Developers were looking to entitle a 2.35-acre site at 14344 S.R. 535 with a mix of office, retail and restaurant uses.