Update on Marco Island renovations. Re-opening this Sat; renovations will continue until formal rebranding Jan 1. Excerpts:

http://www.naplesnews.com/community/...urday_95475415

“Not an option,” said Marriott General Manager Rick Medwedeff about a possible delay. It’s happening. “Unless there’s an act of God, we will open on Aug. 1.”

Now, in the last week, those 800 workers are racing in a sprint to the finish. There is still an enormous amount of work to be done, and starting on Saturday, it will be done with guests staying at the hotel.

Work will continue through December, 2016, and on New Year’s Day, 2017, the Marriott is scheduled to complete its transformation, and at that date will become a luxury-tier JW Marriott property. But that is well down the road, and right now, Medwedeff and his team are concentrating on getting the work done to the point where a hotel that has been closed for three months, and pretty much ripped apart, can come back to life.

“We will obviously still be working. It will be a little rough,” he said. “It will be a mad rush to get finished. Most things, a normal guest wouldn’t recognize, but when you’re a hotelier, you want it to be perfect.

“The most visible thing is the landscaping won’t be in. We’re getting about 20 new royal palms, and there was a two-week lag time on those. For the next three weeks, we’ll be sending all our laundry out.”

The hotel’s primary fitness center won’t be ready, so guests will be able to use the one in the spa on the property’s north end, which is closer to the open rooms in any event. By mid-September, said Medwedeff, “all of the cosmetics should be there. We’re adding a Menchie’s frozen yogurt, and that will open in September.”

The more formal dining establishments in the hotel will also be revamped and rebranded, with Tropiks and Kurrents becoming “Maia” and “Ario” respectively, with facilities for dry-aging beef in house, a “celebrity chef” and a “substantial global wine list.”

The Marriott is reopening with 350 rooms, just half of the normal complement, and is expecting to fill 200 of those rooms with guests on Saturday night, all of whom know they are coming to a hotel just reopening after a major renovation, said Medwedeff.

“People are excited to see the new product, and we’re excited. Each week we’ll be adding to our inventory. Next month we’ll add two more floors, and by December, we’ll have all 700 rooms open.”

In addition, much of the work being accomplished is “not guest-facing,” said Medwedeff, items such as a complete redo of the hotel’s kitchen, originally built for an operation less than half the Marriott’s current size, all-new equipment and increased capacity in the hotel’s massive in-house laundry facilities, and the expanded parking lot.

There will be no ceremony marking Saturday’s return of hotel guests. The Marriott property will fully and officially reopen Jan. 1, 2017, as the JW Marriott Marco Island. The revamped property will grow to 810 guest rooms, including 94 new adults-only rooms, and over 100,000 square feet of meeting space, with up to 24-foot ceilings and extensive views. The hotel has created a website to monitor the status of its transformation, at paradisejw.com."