RELATED: Seminole Tribe continues to evolve with Tampa casino expansion “Maybe the history here has been, ‘Okay, Tampa’s a great market, we don’t have to do much, we do just enough.’ Now we want to do a little bit more for everyone.”
We want to re-establish the Hard Rock brand as the Hard Rock brand, right? So we’re going to re-establish ourselves as entertainment. “But if you weren’t a gambler, there wasn’t a big reason to come. “Tampa has always been a great property, a great moneymaker for the Tribe,” Bonner said. And for casual visitors, perhaps a little intimidating.īut those are the customers Bonner will be counting on to help the Seminole Tribe and Hard Rock recoup their investment in Tampa. It is, as the kids might say, pretty extra.
It features several new restaurants, a sprawling spa, a pool deck the size of a football field, a concert venue targeting A-list performers, and what might be the single most expensive piece of memorabilia in the Hard Rock’s entire collection: A 24-karat gold leaf piano owned by Elvis Presley. The 562 rooms in the Hard Rock’s new hotel tower more than triple its overnight capacity.
