Seminole Hard Rock Opens in Hollywood, Reshaping Broward Entertainment

The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino opened to the public Wednesday on the Seminole Tribe of Florida's reservation along State Road 7 in unincorporated Broward County, just outside Hollywood. The 500-room hotel tower, attached casino, restaurant cluster and 5,500-seat concert hall make up one of the largest single resort developments in South Florida history and the most prominent project to date in the Seminole Tribe's partnership with the Hard Rock brand.

The property is built around a casino floor that operates under the tribe's gaming compact with the state of Florida. Slot machines and electronic gaming machines fill the central floor; live poker and high-limit rooms anchor the perimeter. Class III gaming — including traditional Las Vegas-style table games such as blackjack and roulette — is not part of the current Florida compact, although tribal officials have said publicly that they expect that to change in future negotiations with the state.

The complex includes Hard Rock's signature rock-and-roll memorabilia program, with guitars, costumes and performance artifacts mounted throughout the hotel and restaurant spaces. The development team has confirmed pieces from Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Madonna, Aerosmith, Eric Clapton and dozens of other artists in the on-site collection. The Hard Rock Cafe, the lagoon-style pool deck and several themed restaurants are open to the general public; hotel rooms began accepting reservations earlier this spring.

The attached Hard Rock Live concert hall is scheduled to open with a slate of national touring acts through the summer and fall, giving South Florida a new mid-sized venue between the 20,000-seat Office Depot Center in Sunrise and the smaller club rooms in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach. Bookings already announced include shows from rock, country and Latin tours routing through the region in the second half of the year.

The location — at the seam between Broward and Miami-Dade, immediately adjacent to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Interstate 95 — makes the property reachable from west Broward, central Miami-Dade and the airport hotel zone within roughly a 20-minute drive in light traffic. Tribal officials project the resort will draw heavily from both day-trip regional visitors and out-of-state travelers staying on-property. The full hotel, casino and entertainment complex represents a multi-hundred-million-dollar investment by the tribe and its development partners.