For sixty years the Pier Sixty-Six spire — the seventeen-story tower with the flying-saucer crown — has been Fort Lauderdale's skyline signature, and its 2025 rebirth is the city's hospitality event of the decade: a ground-up, billion-dollar reimagining that restored the icon (the rotating Pier Top lounge turns again, one revolution per sunset-paced hour, over the Intracoastal's best panorama), wrapped it in new resort towers and residences, and re-anchored the superyacht marina that makes the property a destination for boats the size of buildings. The modern campus runs full-luxury: a serious spa, pool terraces over the marina, a restaurant-and-bar collection that opened as the city's new dining news, and rooms from tower classics to marina-view suites. Position seals it — the 17th Street causeway between the beach and the port, Water Taxi stop at the docks, cruise terminals minutes away for sail-day stays. Book Pier Top's sunset slots with the room; the icon's comeback is the city's hottest table.
The original 1965 tower was Space Age Florida at its most confident — the hexagonal spire, the revolving crown lounge, the marina that made it the yachting set's address — and six decades later the redevelopment treated that legacy as the brief: the spire stands restored at the campus's heart, the Pier Top lounge spins again (one slow revolution per hour — the Intracoastal, port, beach skyline, and sunset conveyor-belting past the cocktails), and the surrounding acreage rebuilt into a modern resort district: new guest towers, private residences, the spa and fitness houses, event lawns, and a marina re-engineered for the superyacht era, slips running to lengths that berth the boat-show headliners. The dining collection opened as a city event in itself — chef-driven rooms, marina-side casual, lobby and pool bars — giving the campus the rare self-sufficiency where a stay never requires the car.
The position is the quiet strategic win: the 17th Street corridor sits between this market's halves — the beach's wave wall three minutes east, Las Olas and downtown ten north, Port Everglades' cruise terminals practically adjacent (the property owns the pre-cruise-night market now), and the Water Taxi's dock folding the resort into the city's floating transit. Marina life supplies the entertainment layer the beach hotels can't: the yacht parade at the docks, boat-show weeks when the slips fill with nine-figure hulls, and the harbor's workaday theater running past the pool terraces.
Booking craft
This is the market's of-the-moment splurge — winter season and boat-show weeks price and book accordingly — with marina-view rooms and suites the signature ask and the Pier Top's sunset seatings the reservation to secure with the room (the lounge's revival made it the city's hardest cocktail table). Cruise travelers should note the sail-day math: the terminals' proximity makes the pre-cruise night here the civilized upgrade over airport-corridor hotels.
Why stay here
- ✓The restored 1965 spire icon
- ✓Rotating Pier Top lounge, spinning again
- ✓Superyacht marina at the doors
- ✓New-build towers, spa & pool terraces
- ✓Destination restaurant collection
- ✓Water Taxi dock on property
- ✓Cruise terminals minutes away
- ✓Beach and Las Olas inside ten minutes
Good questions
Is the rotating lounge really back?+
Spinning again — the Pier Top's slow revolution over the Intracoastal returned with the 2025 reopening and immediately became the city's hardest sunset reservation. Book it with the room.
What changed in the rebuild?+
Everything but the icon — the spire was restored while the campus rebuilt around it: new towers, spa, dining collection, and a marina re-engineered for superyachts. A billion dollars, visibly spent.
Who should stay here?+
The occasion trip, boat-week pilgrims, and pre-cruise nights — the terminals sit minutes away, and the marina-view suites with a Pier Top table make the city's definitive splurge.
