New hotels in Fort Lauderdale

Two very different towers now define the new end of Fort Lauderdale's hotel market. One is the Omni, a 29-story convention hotel on the Intracoastal Waterway that opened in December 2025. The other is the Four Seasons, a 22-story beachfront building with private residences that opened in March 2022. They share a city and little else: one is built around meeting rooms and cruise itineraries, the other around a private stretch of sand and two restaurants with Michelin recognition.

The city itself is the seat of Broward County, about 30 miles north of Miami, with 182,760 residents at the 2020 census. It is easier to read as a place made of water than as a downtown with a beach attached. That shapes where each hotel sits and who it is for.

A short history of the place

The area was home to Tequesta peoples for at least 2,000 years before Spanish contact in the 1500s and the diseases that followed reduced their numbers. The city takes its name from Major William Lauderdale: the first stockade called Fort Lauderdale went up in 1838 during the Second Seminole War and was abandoned in 1842, and three forts bore the name in all.

Settlement came later. In 1893 Frank Stranahan began running a ferry across the New River, and the completion of the Florida East Coast Railroad helped development along. The city was incorporated in 1911 and became the seat of Broward County in 1915. The 1920s land boom brought its first major building wave, cut short by the 1926 Miami hurricane and then the Great Depression.

During World War II a Naval Air Station trained pilots and radar and fire control operators, and the Coast Guard set up a base at Port Everglades. Broward County beaches were desegregated in 1962, after a wade-in protest campaign in 1961 and a court ruling the following year.

Today the central business district is the largest in Broward County and the second largest in South Florida after Miami. Marine trades, finance, insurance, real estate, aerospace and film and television production are among the main sectors.

What to do

A weekend in Fort Lauderdale

Start on the water, because the city's identity is there. Fort Lauderdale calls itself the Venice of America, with about 165 miles of inland waterways, and has roughly 42,000 boats and about 100 marinas and boatyards. The New River is a working route for watercraft, and the Intracoastal Waterway runs along the eastern side of the city. A boat trip on either gives a better sense of the place than any single street.

Las Olas Boulevard is the connecting line. It runs from Andrews Avenue in the central business district to A1A and the beach, and the Riverwalk Arts and Entertainment District follows it east to west. The Broward Center for the Performing Arts anchors the western end. Along the way sit the Museum of Discovery and Science, with an IMAX theater, the Museum of Art, and the Stranahan House, the oldest building in the city. The Riverside Hotel, its oldest operating hotel, is on the same stretch.

The Elbo Room, at Las Olas and A1A, appeared in the 1960 film Where the Boys Are, which fixed the city's spring break reputation. The city discouraged the crowds from the mid-1980s on, after about 350,000 college students visited in 1985, and the visitor mix has since moved toward wealthier travelers.

For a quieter day, Hugh Taylor Birch State Park covers 180 acres along the beach. The Bonnet House, built in 1895, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Both are inside the city and can be fitted around a beach morning.

Business travel and boat shows

Convention traffic is a large share of the visitor base: roughly 30 percent of the city's 10 million annual visitors come for events at the convention center. The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show draws more than 125,000 people each year, and the boating industry supports over 109,000 jobs in the county.

Port Everglades handles nearly four million cruise passengers a year, which makes it the third-busiest cruise port in the world. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is the city's main airport. The Omni's location puts it near the convention center, the port terminals and the airport, which is the reason it exists where it does.

When to go

The climate is tropical, with an average year-round temperature of 75.5 degrees Fahrenheit and about 3,000 hours of sunshine a year. The wet season runs from May through October, and the dry season from November to mid-April. Rainfall can be extreme: on April 12, 2023, the city received 25.91 inches in a day, which caused flooding and a temporary closure of the airport. A hotel booking in the wet season is cheaper but not risk-free.

Where to stay

Fort Lauderdale has two kinds of hotel geography, the waterfront convention district and the beach strip, and the two new hotels tracked here sit on opposite sides of that divide.

Along the Intracoastal Waterway

The Omni Fort Lauderdale Hotel stands on the Intracoastal Waterway next to the Broward County Convention Center. A ribbon cutting took place on December 18, 2025, and a grand opening release followed in April 2026. It has 801 rooms, 82 of them suites, and more than 120,000 square feet of meeting space with outdoor terraces linked to the convention center. The architects are Nunzio Marc DeSantis, with Stantec as architect of record and EoA Group on the interiors.

Omni runs six restaurants and bars there, among them Fair Ketch, Reef 76 Kitchen & Bar and the Ibis Sky Lounge. It also has Mokara Spa, over 8,500 square feet on level 10, and a pool deck. An Italian chophouse was scheduled for 2026. The group describes the beaches as minutes away, and the port and the airport are close.

This is where a delegate, an event planner or a cruise passenger would stay. The hotel was developed with Broward County, Visit Lauderdale and Matthews Southwest, and the opening announcement projects more than $450 million in local economic impact.

On the sand

The Four Seasons Hotel and Residences Fort Lauderdale is at 525 North Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard. Kobi Karp designed the tower, whose curved shape the group calls yacht-inspired, and about a third of the site is green space. It has 129 rooms, 19 suites and 41 private residences. Tara Bernerd designed the rooms and public spaces, and Martin Brudnizki designed the restaurants, lounges and pool area.

Guests have a private beach area with a concierge, two pools, a spa with six treatment rooms and a fitness center designed with Harley Pasternak. The hotel says its spa has Forbes Five-Star status for 2025 and 2026, and that Evelyn's and MAASS by Ryan Ratino both appear in the Michelin listings.

Rates are the main hurdle. A metasearch site showed a cheapest rate of about $404 a night, and the writer of One Mile at a Time estimated entry-level rooms at $600 to $900 around the opening. A booking site listed a resort fee of about $55 per night. For comparison, booking sites showed the Omni at around $220 for a July night and above $530 for an early October one, with a $30 daily destination fee on top.

Which hotel for your trip

The Omni is the sensible choice for a conference at the convention center, a cruise from Port Everglades or a short airport stopover. The walk to events is covered, the room count is large enough that group blocks are plausible, and the rate spread across the year is wide, so dates matter more than the brand.

The Four Seasons suits a beach stay where the hotel itself is part of the plan. It has a private section of sand, two pools facing the sea, and a spa and kitchen that the hotel presents as destinations in their own right. It is also the more expensive of the two by a wide margin. It is better value for a few nights than for a week, and a poor fit for anyone whose day is spent inside a convention hall.

Couples and families on a leisure trip will find the Four Seasons closer to what they came for. Solo business travelers, and anyone whose employer books a block, will find the Omni easier to justify.

How the market looks

The two openings here are almost four years apart. The Four Seasons opened in March 2022 on the beach, and the Omni opened in December 2025 as part of the county's convention center expansion.

This guide covers only hotels that meet the site's standard of a genuinely new building with verified details. Fort Lauderdale has many more hotels, but older properties and renovations are outside its scope. If one of the two projects here changes its listing, the hotel pages are the place to check, because opening dates in coverage have moved before: the Four Seasons was expected in December 2021 in one pre-opening piece and is dated March 2022 by the group.

Neighbors are worth knowing for planning. Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Hollywood, Dania Beach, Pompano Beach and Wilton Manors border the city. The northwest corner of the city is cut off from the rest and joined only by the Cypress Creek Canal, which runs under I-95. The Henry E. Kinney Tunnel carries U.S. Route 1 for 864 feet under the New River and Las Olas Boulevard, the only tunnel on a state road in Florida.

Frequently asked questions

Which new hotel in Fort Lauderdale is closest to the convention center?

The Omni Fort Lauderdale Hotel. It was built as the anchor of the Broward County Convention Center District expansion and has terraces and meeting space connected to the center. It opened with a ribbon cutting on December 18, 2025.

Is there a new luxury beachfront hotel in Fort Lauderdale?

Yes, the Four Seasons Hotel and Residences Fort Lauderdale on North Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard. It has 129 rooms, 19 suites and 41 residences, a private beach area and two pools, and the group dates its opening to March 2022.

When is the best time to visit Fort Lauderdale?

November to mid-April, the dry season. The wet season runs from May through October and can bring heavy rain: the city recorded 25.91 inches in one day in April 2023, enough to close the airport for a time.

How many rooms does the Omni Fort Lauderdale have?

801, including 82 suites. Two Presidential Suites on the 27th and 28th floors each exceed 3,000 square feet.