Vivat Le Hard Rock Hotel!

Hard Rock Hotel in Daytona Beach.

It is interesting how things constantly change.

Desert Inn in Daytona at 900 North Atlantic Ave. did not have a great reputation. TripAdvisor named it one of 10-dirtiest hotels in the nation.

And then, shortly thereafter police and FBI raided the hotel and arrested the owner on child pornography charges for allegedly paying a 13-year-old boy to perform sex acts on video.

After the authorities put the owner in jail, the Hotel ended up in the hands of very successful local hoteliers. They made a deal to build a 4-star Westin Hotel. They petitioned the county to make the Beach in front of Hotel non-driving, they made a deal, the hotel used next door lot for oceanfront parking, and for that got the non-driving beach.

At that time there were two deals on the table, and initially Hard Rock Hotel’s site was about 2 miles south. It had a different developer, but this deal eventually failed and the newspaper announced that there would be no more Hard Rock Hotel.

Well, Daytonians are so used to failed project, that they simply added this one to the list.

And then, just a few months later we read that hard Rock Hotel was coming. The developers of Westin called Hard Rock, interested them in participating and switched the flags. Of course, this is a smaller place. They will not have Hard Rock Cafe, which they planned on the other site.

Anyway, the work is in progress, and couple of days ago they put the sign on the property.

I think it looks good.

About Jon Zolsky

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