After 12 years of work, $1.5 billion, and thanks to the hard work and detailed procurement services of The Parker Company, a 450-foot tower in the shape of a guitar stands next to the original 465-room hotel, finally bringing a genuinely Vegas flash to the South Florida casino scene and raising the hotel capacity to 1,271 rooms. The new landmark marks the brand’s pushing of architectural limits and amenity options at its hotels.

“We’re building something that’s an attraction,” said James Allen, CEO of Seminole Gaming and chairman of Hard Rock International. “It’s not just gaming — not slots in a box.”

Guests enter the new hotel through an enormous dome-shaped atrium called the Oculus, where a light, water and fire show awaits. In one direction stretches the expanded 195,000-square-foot casino and new 7,000-person, Broadway-ready entertainment venue. Outside, a 13.5-acre water oasis: a lake with kayaks, full-service cabanas with flat screen TVs, and a man-made beach. A new seven-story, 168-room hotel building sits adjacent to the guitar tower and has swim-up rooms on its first floor. Nineteen different restaurants span the complex, all purchased by The Parker Company.