Miami Airport Westin Hotel Project Scrapped After FAA Says 150-Foot Tower Would Create Radar Blind Spot
Miami is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The planned Westin hotel at Miami International Airport will not be built. The developers have walked away, and Miami-Dade County is terminating the ground lease and preparing to seek new bidders, county aviation director Ralph Cutié confirmed at a county meeting, following an initial report by The Real Deal on October 8.
The project was a joint venture of Stephen Ross's Related Ross and Jeffrey Soffer's Fontainebleau Development, which won a 50-year ground lease in 2023. The 451-room hotel would have carried Marriott's Westin flag, stood 150 feet tall on a 1.8-acre site, and connected to Concourse D by a pedestrian bridge, with two restaurants, a pool with terrace, a spa, a fitness center, and event space. When the airport promoted the plan in January 2024, the opening target was 2026, later pushed to 2029.
The Federal Aviation Administration's safety review killed the project. In August 2024, the FAA found the 150-foot structure would create a radar blind spot. An alternative proposed by the aviation department was also rejected. Nearly two years of talks over a shorter building followed, before the developers concluded the project was "no longer economically viable," according to One Mile at a Time. The county expects to finish ending the lease within about a month.
Under the lease, the airport would have collected the greater of $2.5 million a year or 3.5% of the hotel's gross revenue. Hoodline reports county commissioners criticized officials for not keeping them informed and asked whether the county could owe the developers for costs already spent. Both Related Ross and Fontainebleau declined to comment to Hoodline.
For travelers, MIA keeps one on-site hotel for now: the 259-room MIA Hotel at Terminal E, which opened in 1959 and won a five-year operating extension with a five-year renewal option in May. Wait N Rest operates short-term sleeping suites and showers in Concourse D under a 2024 county contract. Separately, hotel operator MCR filed plans in June to add 1,000 rooms in two towers at the Hilton Miami Airport Blue Lagoon. The Westin never opened reservations, so no bookings are affected. One Mile at a Time estimates no new terminal hotel will open before 2030.
(Compiled from reporting by The Real Deal, Hoodline, and NonRev Travel News, October 11, 2026)
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图片来源：Wikimedia Commons，Quintin Soloviev 摄，CC BY 4.0 授权
