$800M Longboat Key resort welcomes locals for soft opening

With the sabering of a Champagne bottle, as is its tradition, the St. Regis Longboat Key unveiled the new resort to a select group of community members and media Friday, Aug 16. 

The event served as a celebration and a soft opening for the resort, an $800 million project that will have an official grand opening later this fall.

Now that the resort is in a soft opening stage, General Manager Winfred van Workum said it will be a gradual process to get the resort up to ull service. Most dining options in the resort are open to the public but will have more limited seating than usual during the soft opening. 

The Monkey Bar, on the property's beach, will be open in the coming days, and the coffee shop within the resort will open in a few weeks, according to van Workum.  

Van Workum said he wants everyone to know the other bars in the resort — namely the main bar in the lobby — are open to the public and serving signature St. Regis Longboat Key cocktails. 

The St. Regis, on the site of the former Colony Beach & Tennis Resort, has been more than a decade in the making, as pointed out by its developer, Chuck Whittall of Unicorp National Development.

“It was 14 years to the day since the Colony closed,” Whittall said at the event, with a nod to The Colony’s longtime owner, the late Murray “Murf” Klauber.  “This is a new legacy.”

Members of the Klauber family were there to celebrate the new resort that replaced the iconic one owned by their father.

“There’s magic here,” said Katie Moulton, Klauber’s daughter who served as general manager for The Colony. “There’s fairy dust in the sand that just needed to be stirred, and they did.”

That magic shone in every detail of the five-star property, which features 168 hotel rooms, 69 condo units, a ballroom, spa, two restaurants, a beach grill and three bars, not to mention a 4-acre saltwater lagoon complete with tropical fish and stingrays. There are even two resident tortoises that guests can pet and feed scraps of lettuce.

“It feels amazing,” van Workum said about the opening. “It’s been a lot of work, especially in the last couple of weeks, to put this together, but it’s so incredible to showcase and see the reactions.”  

During the opening ceremony, he also gave credit to Whittall for his perseverance in seeing the project through. "He has more tenacity, more passion and more grit than anyone I've ever met," van Workum said.

Throughout the buildings were nods to Longboat Key and the Sarasota area, everything from lights leading up to the ballroom designed to look like circus hoops to the large sea turtle sculpture above the fountain that welcomes guests to the hotel entrance. 

Whittall said 60 of the hotel’s rooms are open and it will continue opening rooms as construction completes on the property prior to its official grand opening. Until then, some guests are able to enjoy the resort — which has an average rate of $1,200 per night.

Encompassing 18 beachfront acres, the development is the largest on Longboat Key in more than 50 years. 

Van Workum said that over the last few days, the staff has been preparing for this moment, training all the skills necessary for the five-star service.

“I think most satisfying for me, right now, is seeing the team in their performance, seeing them interact with guests and see all of that come to life,” van Workum said.

This story was updated to reflect the correct number of hotel rooms at the property.