Plans for Miami International Airport's first new hotel in more than 60 years have been tossed.

Now, the county is preparing to restart the bidding process after six years of trying to develop the site.

Billionaire developers Stephen Ross and Jeffrey Soffer are not moving forward with a 150-foot hotel after the Federal Aviation Administration rejected the plans over concerns about safety issues, Miami-Dade Aviation Director and Miami International Airport CEO Ralph Cutié said at the county commission meeting on Tuesday.

The developers had been working on a redesign but could not come to a solution.

"Recently, the developer came back and said that they could not make the development work or economically viable for them at the current site, which is why we're moving forward now with the termination," Cutié said.

Ross, CEO of West Palm Beach-based Related Ross, and Soffer, CEO of Fontainebleau Development, had landed a 50-year ground lease with the county for the site in 2023 after a three-year-long bidding process.

Ross and Soffer were expected to pay $2.5M annually or 3.5% of annual gross revenue, whichever was greater, when the hotel opened, according to The Real Deal, which first reported the news.

The developers submitted their plans to the FAA in August 2024 for the 451-key Arquitectonica-designed hotel, planned to include two restaurants, a pool with a terrace, event space, a spa, a fitness center and a pedestrian bridge that would connect to Concourse D.

But the FAA said the hotel created a radar blind spot that posed a safety issue, and even after the aviation department came back with a different approach, it was still rejected, Cutié said.

It took nearly two years of negotiations and exploring a shorter building between the FAA and the developers before Ross and Soffer decided to scrap the plans altogether.

Neither Related Ross nor Fontainebleau Development responded to requests for comment.

Now, Miami-Dade County is preparing to terminate the lease, and while the county hasn't agreed to anything, it could be responsible for incurred costs on the failed project, which Commissioner Oliver Gilbert pushed back on.

"I'm not against doing incurred cost, paying them for their incurred cost, but I think it's odd that we'd be in the business of paying for incurred cost because somebody else submitted a proposal that they can't build," Gilbert said.

Cutié said he expects the county will be able to move forward with the termination within the next month and is working on expediting the request for proposals process.

The news drew frustration from county commissioners, several of whom expressed concerns about being left in the dark over the project's status, despite requesting updates.

"On this one, you guys dropped the ball," Miami-Dade County Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez said at the meeting.

"The discussion on the airport hotel was a very difficult discussion for this commission, probably one of the most difficult that I remember since I've been here," he added. "No matter how it ends, the most important thing goes back to what I think that this commission continues to ask: Keep us updated on what's going on so we can make the decision at the proper time."