36-storey guitar-shaped hotel revealed

(Image credit: Hard Rock)

Hard Rock officially commenced construction of a massive, far-from-understated expansion to one of its Florida hotels this week. 

The $1.5 billion renovation and expansion of the Seminole Tribe's Florida hotel and casino complex will be dominated by a 36-storey, 450 ft glass tower in the shape of a guitar.

When it opens in 2019, the tower will boost the existing casino's capacity to over 1300 rooms, alongside a slew of new luxury 'Bora-bora inspired villas', surrounded by water.

"Not only do you have all these individual lagoons that you can swim through, but literally rooms submerged in water, which you can stay in overnight with butler service; waterways and canals and lazy rivers - just a lot of fun stuff," Hard Rock International Chairman Jim Allen said.

Nicko McBrain and Steven Van Zandt were on hand and took part in a suitably sophiticated ceremony, in the apparently-traditional-to-Hard Rock form of mass co-ordinated guitar smashing to a backdrop of fireworks.

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