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Inside the JW Marriott in Water Street Tampa – Tampa Bay Business Journal

Sun Dec 20 2020

The hotel’s opening is a major milestone for Water Street Tampa.

Design by NBWW; photo by Nola Laleye

Design by NBWW; photo by Nola Laleye

Until the last few weeks, Ron McAnaugh tried his hardest to stay out of the JW Marriott, Water Street Tampa’s new 26-story convention hotel.

…The JW’s 519 rooms and two restaurants are ready right on time, and the gleaming, modern space will host its first guests on Monday. It is the host hotel for Super Bowl LV, set for Feb. 7 at Raymond James Stadium.

…Between the Marriott Water Street and the JW, Tampa now has 1,246 hotel rooms within steps of the Tampa Convention Center. Both hotels offer restaurants meant to appeal to both conventiongoers and locals; a $50 million renovation of the Marriott Water Street created sports bar Garrison Tavern and the more upscale Anchor and Brine, with outdoor dining overlooking the waterfront. The JW will open with two restaurants: Driftlight, a casual dining spot on the first floor, and Six, a more eclectic bar and restaurant on the sixth floor. It also has a space near the parking garage for an ever-rotating selection of pop-up concepts, called Turntable.

The JW was built around meeting space: One of the hotel’s most distinguishing architectural features is a glass meeting room, suspended three stories over the hotel lobby. The entire third floor is dedicated to small breakout rooms; the fourth floor is ballrooms. And before the pandemic, there was no shortage of demand for that kind of space: In Tampa, real estate developers were adding event space to just about any type of property as a way to drive additional revenue. McAnaugh said the Marriott Water Street was on track to have record years in 2020 and 2021.`

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