MIAMI — At the recent Hotec North America conference, held in late June at the JW Marriott Turnberry Miami, several speakers addressed the 152 suppliers and 109 designers and operators who were attending.
Steve Gross, founder and chief playmaker of the Life is Good Kids Foundation, greeted the attendees with a discussion on optimism and maintaining a positive outlook during challenging times. “During the hardest times, when you need optimism the most, it's the hardest to come by,” he said. “Optimism, as an emotion, is a state of mind, just like every other emotion. They come and they go.” When optimism is a trait of character, however, it is easier to maintain consistently, he said.
Part of optimism, he continued, is celebrating the small victories people tend to overlook. “People are like, ‘I don't like this culture where everyone gets a trophy,’ but what if everybody earns a trophy for something?” he asked the crowd. “What we know from research is when we look at people—whether it's teachers or whether it's a supervisor—negative feedback decreases motivation and positive feedback increases motivation.” When we look for the good in others and celebrate it, he said, “people will rise or fall to the level of our expectations.” Rather than aiming for perfection, he said, people can aim for simply creating a solid connection with another person, and build from there.
Evermore Orlando
Over lunch, Stewart Brown, SVP of operations at Dart Interests, and Laurie Miller, managing principal at Anderson/Miller, shared details on how they are developing an upcoming project in Orlando called Evermore. To accommodate large families and groups that go to the surrounding resorts, Evermore will be a community of furnished houses, flats and villas with as many as 11 bedrooms, as well as a traditional hotel.
Dart Interests bought 1,100 acres in the middle of Orlando’s Tourism Corridor, adjacent to Walt Disney World Resort. When it opens in summer 2023, the property should have approximately 10,000 bedrooms across the vacation rental units and the 433-guestroom Conrad Orlando hotel.
“It's a new type of vacation rental,” Brown explained. “Instead of building homes and selling them to other people [who] then rent them, we're actually going to own all the vacation rental units.” Dart also will manage and operate all of the units.
Alongside architecture firm LRK, Anderson/Miller is designing the units to appeal to family groups. “It was really important to us that there was a seat at the table for dinner for every head in bed, so to speak,” Miller said. The company is putting in long tables that can accommodate every person staying in the unit.
The first phase of the project will have 69 houses with five to 11 bedroom units for a total of 633 bedrooms. The development team is starting to build what they are calling Showcase Row with 10 model units to test everything out. Construction on phase one will begin by the end of the year.