A 604-room hotel will open in 2021 in Walt Disney World’s hotel corridor, the result of the expansion and renovation of what is now a Best Western.
Officials with St. Louis-based Drury Hotels on Monday said that Drury Plaza Hotel Orlando Lake Buena Vista would come in two stages.
In early 2021, the company plans to open a new, 264-room building on the site at 2000 Hotel Plaza Blvd.
The existing property will undergo renovations and the 340-room building will be rebranded under the Drury Hotels flag by the end of that year. In 2017, Drury Hotels bought the Best Western property for $20.5 million.
Hotel general manager Michael Weihs said the company’s alignment with Walt Disney World ? the property will be known as an official hotel of the theme park giant ? should help it thrive in Central Florida’s deeply competitive hotel market.
“It’s Disney,” said Weihs, who has worked for Drury for three years and has been in the industry 20 years. “To be able to align yourself with that brand is huge for us. It’s fantastic.”
The property will be the second in Central Florida for Drury Hotels, which also operates Drury Inn & Suites near Universal Studios.
It will join what is already one of the largest hotel markets in the world, with more than 500 hotels and 120,000 rooms.
“This property has been a long time in the making, and we are delighted to see it take shape,” said Chuck Drury, president and CEO of St. Louis-based Drury Hotels, in a news release.
The hotel will be the fourth Drury Hotel property in Florida and the second in Orlando, joining Drury Inn & Suites near Universal Studios.
The new hotel will include splash pads, a hot tub and a 5:30 p.m. happy hour that includes two complimentary drinks for each guest. Like other hotels in the area, it will also include shuttle service to the Walt Disney World theme parks. Finally, it will have a 12,000-square-foot meeting space.
Drury Hotels is an upper-middle scale hotel that recently received a J.D. Power and Associates award for guest satisfaction. Room rates for the new hotel weren’t available.
The hotel is expected to employ 150 people once fully operational.
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