The County Terminates the Lease
The 451-key Westin planned at Miami International Airport will not be built. Miami-Dade County is terminating the ground lease, and aviation director and MIA chief executive Ralph Cutié told the county commission on 6 October 2026 that the developers could not make the development work at the current site.
Hoodline reports Cutié expects the termination to close within a month. The county is preparing to restart the bidding process for a different operator.
The Height the FAA Rejected
The developers submitted their plans to the FAA in August 2024. The agency found the 150-foot building would create a radar blind spot that posed a safety issue for aircraft. The aviation department returned with a different approach and the agency rejected that too.
Negotiations over a shorter building ran close to two years. Bisnow reported the collapse on 9 October 2026 and One Mile at a Time on 10 October 2026.
What the Site Carried
The county's lease award, matter 230935 of 18 July 2023, records contract RFP-01677 to FDR Miami Hotel LLC on approximately 79,133 square feet of county land.
The awarded terms are a 50-year lease, a premises rent of $2.50 per square foot, and, once the hotel opened, the higher of a $2,500,000 minimum annual guarantee or 3.5 percent of gross revenue, with the guarantee indexed to the consumer price index. The memo puts projected revenue to the county at $240,000,000 over the term and anticipates the opening in year four of the lease.
The awarded programme ran 451 keys at an upper-upscale classification, with a rooftop restaurant, an all-day restaurant and bar, a pool with terrace, meeting and event space, a fitness centre and a spa, plus a climate-controlled pedestrian bridge to Concourse D. Arquitectonica International Corp is the design firm on the record. Bisnow prints a 1.8-acre site.
The Hotel That Still Operates on Campus
The Miami International Airport Hotel trades inside the terminal. Hoodline reports the airport has gone without new on-site lodging for more than six decades.
One Mile at a Time reports the airport is spending $14 billion on a modernization programme that runs about a decade.
What a New Bidder Inherits
A three-year bidding process produced the 2023 award, and the redesign talks consumed two further years. The county publishes no timetable for the replacement process.
The radar objection sits with the site. The last proposal met the agency's finding at 150 feet, and a shorter building was the subject of the talks that ended in October.