Rosewood, one of the top hotel brands in Sunny Isles Beach, plans to exit the market after only a year and a half amid a falling out with the owner of the Acqualina condo-hotel resort, company officials said.Rosewood has run Acqualina’s 96-room hotel since its May 2006 opening. But on Wednesday, the developer, Aventura’s Trump Group, announced it would manage the oceanfront property itself and that Rosewood would leave Oct. 31.
Neither side would offer details on the abrupt change. A Rosewood spokesman said the Trump Group’s plans for Acqualina are ”not in lockstep with the Rosewood mission.” The Trump Group stated it wanted to run the Acqualina as an independent resort and that it may try to expand the Acqualina brand.
Trump said it notified Rosewood last month of its plans to dismiss the company as the resort’s operator.
Rosewood’s scheduled departure comes about a month after the Regent South Beach switched to a Vincci after the developer of the condo-hotel soured on the operator’s performance.
Victor Lopez, a former Hyatt executive now helping Kor Group launch condo-hotel projects in South Florida and elsewhere, said the switch is bound to anger buyers at the Acqualina, where condo units started in the $400,000 range and ran as high as $5 million.
”Rosewood’s an excellent brand,” Lopez said. “Obviously people buy because they’re going to receive premium hotel services, from a very reputable, high-end operator.”
But Mark Zilbert, a condo broker negotiating sales on some Acqualina units, said he thought Rosewood always took a back seat to Acqualina anyway. Unlike Key Biscayne’s Ritz-Carlton, the Trump Group made the hotel operator a secondary element at the hotel property, calling it ‘Acqualina, a Rosewood Resort.’ ”
”Acqualina is the brand, no question,” Zilbert said.
