Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Kissimmee, Fla., has announced a $150 million plan to expand its facilities. Major construction is expected to begin in spring 2019 and be finished by 2021.
The 1,416-room hotel will add 303 rooms, and an extension will add 90,000 square feet of meeting and prefunction space to the convention center’s existing 400,000 square feet. The plan calls for the additional space to be split equally between a 30,000-square-foot ballroom, meeting rooms, and prefunction areas. The current meeting space includes 65 event rooms, including the 10,000-capacity Florida Exhibition Hall.
The expansion will also add a new parking structure, an event lawn, and a new pool and lazy river at the resort.
The Gaylord features nine eateries, a water park, adult swimming pool, spa, and fitness center and is located 19 miles from Orlando International Airport and four miles from the Epcot Center and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Ryman Hospitality Properties Inc. will fund the expansion with help from a 1 percent hotel tax assessment. Ryman’s Chairman and CEO, Colin Reed, said, “Gaylord Palms is ideally positioned in one of the most attractive convention and leisure destinations in the country. Much like our recently completed Gaylord Texan expansion, we believe this expansion will allow us to meet the increasing demand we are seeing from large group customers seeking additional high-quality meeting space in a way that takes full advantage of our existing resort infrastructure.”
