Again partnering with hospitality entrepreneur, David Grutman on new venture

A new resort is being developed in The Bahamas by Grammy winner, Pharrell Williams and hospitality entrepreneur David Grutman, who both last year developed a US$200-million hotel in Miami Beach.

Having partnered on developing the Swan restaurant, which opened in the Miami Design District in 2018 and the 266-key Goodtime Hotel in South Beach Williams and Grutman are taking their tourism development business overseas in The Bahamas.

The CNN is reporting that the resort, dubbed ‘Somewhere Else’, is expected to open at the beginning of 2024 and will include several restaurants and bars, as well as bungalows complete with recording studios.

The main building of the resort will be redeveloped from the Beach Tower, the oldest hotel on Atlantis Paradise Island. The pink building was designed by the late Morris Lapidus, who also designed the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach, where Grutman’s LIV nightclub has operated since 2008.

Resort to have tropical modernism feature

Shawn Sullivan, a partner with The Rockwell Group, is leading the design team, which will infuse the resort with aesthetics of “tropical modernism”. As such it is anticipated that the resort will have cascading pools, polychrome rooms and colour accents throughout the property.

According to CNN, the project marks the first time Brookfield Properties, which owns Atlantis Paradise Island, has broken from extending the Atlantis branding to a hotel on the property. Williams and Grutman will retain 100 per cent ownership of Somewhere Else’s intellectual property and were given “carte blanche on how to execute it,” the CNN has reported.

Grutman said the resort would emphasise the outdoors and have a mix of fun spaces and quiet ones, noting that there won’t be a nightclub on the grounds.

“We want to do this one differently than what you’re used to from Pharrell and I,” Grutman told CNN.

For his part, Sullivan said the resort’s pricing will be neither affordable nor ultra-high-end, but somewhere in between. The 266-key Goodtime Hotel in South Beach, which Williams and Grutman teamed up on scored a US$164 million refinancing in September.

The hotel opened in April of last year and includes 100,000 square feet of public spaces, 45,000 square feet of retail and a 30,000-square-foot restaurant. The hotel brought perhaps too many good times, quickly racking up nearly 30 noise violations, leading to a motion to have the hotel’s conditional use permit revoked or modified.