SAN FRANCISCO—Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants has announced it will manage a new, luxury lifestyle boutique hotel in Tampa, Fla., that will incorporate a restaurant from Michelin-starred Tuscan chef Silvia Baracchi. The property, which is slated to open in early 2018, further expands Kimpton’s footprint on the gulf coast of the Sunshine State and will be its seventh hotel in Florida, joining recently added Hotel Zamora in St. Pete Beach along with existing hotels in South Beach, Miami, Palm Beach, and Vero Beach.
The hotel will be located at the intersection of O’Brien and Laurel streets in the heart of Tampa’s Westshore neighborhood. The new-construction property will be part of a community gathering place built as a modern interpretation of an Italian piazza, essentially creating an intimate town square in an otherwise commercial area. The luxury lifestyle hotel will be designed by award-winning architect Albert Alfonso, who has earned a reputation for ingeniously highlighting the community activities that occur within his spaces. The property will feature 150 rooms and suites spanning five stories, along with a rare Tampa rooftop bar that highlights the spectacular sunsets as well as separate rooftop event space for weddings and special gatherings. The property will also feature more than 4,000 square feet of indoor meeting and event space as well as dedicated venues for musical performances and a lobby bar, pool, and fitness center.
The new Tampa hotel will also house the first U.S. outpost for Chef Silvia Baracchi, who gained international acclaim at Il Falconiere, a Michelin-starred restaurant and retreat in Cortona, Tuscany. The intimate fine dining restaurant will be supplied by a new off-site, state-of-the-art hydroponic farm named Red Barn Farm, which will devote nearly eight acres of climate-controlled growing capacity exclusively to the property (but guests can still catch a glimpse of the growing techniques thanks to a showpiece vertical garden). The dinner-only restaurant will feature a menu that reflects a sophisticated and stylish take on the culinary traditions of the Tuscan countryside, and Chef Baracchi also plans to bring her signature cooking classes to the local community. The hotel will also feature a second restaurant where guests can enjoy three casual meals a day and a bakery that will also serve coffee, snacks, and café-style fare. All dining experiences will be complemented by abundant live music and performance art, with venues ranging from performance areas on the piazza to indoor stages.
“We are thrilled at the opportunity to bring this caliber of heartfelt hospitality and dining to Tampa, especially since it allows us to continue growing along Florida’s gulf coast,” said Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants CEO Mike DeFrino. “The combination of stunning architecture, a Michelin-starred chef, a fantastic rooftop and Kimpton’s authentic, unscripted guest service make this a special project for us.”
The new hotel will target a large and growing base of business travelers to Florida’s third-largest city and the state’s most important banking and high tech manufacturing hub. Lifestyle travelers are also a part of the hotel’s guest mix, given Tampa’s tourist attractions, including Busch Gardens, the Florida Aquarium, professional sports teams, museums, vibrant nightlife, as well as the nearby St. Pete Beach and Clearwater Beach.
The owner and developer of the new hotel, Giunta Group, is a Tampa-based developer that has built and managed a variety of real estate projects including retail, residential, and commercial projects.
“This signature boutique hotel will be unlike anything else in Tampa, from the rooftop bar and access to the fresh air piazza, to the design by renowned architect Albert Alfonso, to the one-of-a-kind dining experiences,” said The Giunta Group CEO Richard S. Giunta. “As local developers, we were especially drawn to Kimpton’s leadership managing boutique hotels and restaurants around the U.S. and within Florida. We knew Kimpton would bring heart to a hometown project for us.”
