It’s Friday night at the W hotel and the Living Room lounge is packed. Guys in designer jeans and untucked shirts and women in high heels and higher skirts sip $16 pear martinis. A DJ spins Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas. The outside terrace, with its fire pit and ocean view, is one of the coolest in town.

If it sounds like an only-in-Miami scene, you haven’t yet made your way to the W hotel on Fort Lauderdale Beach. Any weekend night feels like you’ve landed in an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Broward County’s nightlife scene is in the middle of a transformation. It’s the TV equivalent of going from broadcast to cable.

Twenty-three years after the city refused MTV the necessary permits to film its annual Spring Break show on Fort Lauderdale beach, the shift from drunken college party town to stylish, sophisticated beach-side destination is nearing completion despite the economic downturn

“It took us 22 years to become an overnight sensation,” jokes Nicki Grossman, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Take a look at the edgy architecture on the pricey stretch of A1A that’s home not only to the W, but also to the luxury Atlantic, a Ritz-Carlton and possibly soon, a Waldorf Astoria and Mandarin-Oriental.

Growing trend

More than hotels, Broward County’s nightlife has taken a decidedly upward turn. A turn some say has us looking more like South Beach than ever before.

Out west, The Opium Group, which pioneered nightlife in Miami, opened the Opium nightclub at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood. The new Opium, which debuted in April after the closing of a popular South Beach predecessor of the same name, featured a Kim Kardashian-hyped opening and a décor synthesizing Paris cabaret, Vegas strip and modern Hong Kong.

The east side of Broward County gets its own swank nightclub club Dec. 26 when impresario Gerry Kelly is scheduled to open MI-VI at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach.

“I would describe it as Studio 54 meets the British House of Windsor,” Kelly says. “All of the furniture is going to be Victorian and Elizabethan reproduction. I want it to feel like you’re walking into a future version of history.”

Anyone who’s partied in Miami over the past 15 years has partied Kelly-style. From Bash and Liquid, to Level and Karu & Y, he’s had a hand in some of the splashiest nightclubs in Miami Beach and Miami. So why the move to Broward?

“To me, Gulfstream is the sleeping giant that’s ready to be awakened,” he says.

Miami, Kelly says, is oversaturated.

“What you have is hotels, restaurants, bar, poolsides and rooftops as a well as nightclubs all operating as nightclubs with the velvet rope, the DJ and the bottle menu,” he says. “One of the things that I see becoming so frustrating for the customer in South Beach is parking. There is none. The valet is overpriced. The service and the wait is horrendous. We have a whole metropolis of restaurants and bars and shops ready to open here. This is undiscovered gem that’s ready to shine and show its brilliance.”

Hotshot Miami chef Douglas Rodriguez is set to open Ola Cuba at Gulfstream by February. Can it be long before Michelle Bernstein of Michy’s and Sra. Martinez fame in Miami opens in Broward? She’s already spread north to Palm Beach. Other name restaurateurs have opened elsewhere in Broward County. There’s the chic China Grill at the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina. Stephen Starr, known best for his Buddakan and Morimoto restaurants in New York and Philadelphia, has his upscale steakhouse Steak 954 at the W. Chef Todd English opened his first South Florida restaurant at Da Campo Osteria in Fort Lauderdale before taking on other restaurants in Palm Beach Gardens, Boca Raton and, soon, West Palm Beach.

“A lot of people from Boston actually vacation in Fort Lauderdale,” says Massachusetts-based English of his decision to open his 50-seater on the Intrascoastal. “I know the market. We did OK our first year and as the economy comes we’re starting to feel it. There’s more confidence out there and we’re building on that.”

Even the Harbor Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, south of the busy strip, is getting in on the glamour with the addition of Sea Level, a nearly $8 million oceanfront restaurant and bar set to open in February.

“The whole face of Fort Lauderdale is changing,” says David Cronin, the Marriott’s director of food and beverage. “You either get modernized, updated or you get new product.”

Changing image

Grossman says Fort Lauderdale’s image as the capital of college Spring Break has just now — finally — faded away. “The image damage took years to repair,” Grossman says. “We’re now at a point where we’re not top of mind for college spring breaks.”

Symbolically, the wet T-shirt contest might have been invented at the Candy Store Lounge on Fort Lauderdale beach, but the Ritz-Carlton now stands in its place. “If you ever believe you can’t change who you are, take a look at that piece of property,” she says.

But Grossman, like many interviewed for this story, stops short of saying that Broward is becoming like South Beach. We’ve just taken on some its characteristics. You no longer have to go to South Beach for the see-and-be-scene, just as you no longer have to drive to Palm Beach for a taste of old money.

“There already is a South Beach and it is very easily accessible,” Grossman says. “It should be high on everyone’s list, but we don’t need two South Beach communities in South Florida.”

Indeed, such anti-South Beach Fort Lauderdale stalwarts as the 71-year-old bastion of beer and bikinis known as the Elbo Room at the corner of A1A and Las Olas isn’t go anywhere.

Exit 66, the sprawling nightclub that opened last May a half-block north of the Elbo Room, is owned by the same group that brought Crobar to South Beach, New York and Chicago. But instead of leather banquettes and bottle service, they created a more approachable, road trip-themed venue that might not have worked so well in South Beach.

“One simple thing that happened was that through effective guest-tracking, Miami business owners noticed a large percentage of their clientele was coming from the north,” says Challo Schott, Exit 66 marketing director. “Because the same type of venues, with similar amenities and talent draw wasn’t available.”

Even The Real Housewives of Orange County saw something in Broward County. They shot an episode of the Bravo show airing 10 p.m. Thursday. Along with seeing the housewives eating and partying at the W, the nation will get an eyeful of the stunning waterways that gave Fort Lauderdale its nickname as Venice of America.

Hotels adjust

Back at the W Fort Lauderdale, developer John Yanopoulos says a combination of factors contributed to the hotel’s opening and success

“The city itself decided it wasn’t going to be a T-shirt town,” he says. “They cleaned up the boulevard. They put up the wall and the circular entry gates into the beach. It’s a resort destination now.”

To offset the downturn in tourism, hotels have lowered their rates and Broward County is now being advertised in a “luxury for less” campaign meant to appeal to a younger, hipper demographic. For the last three winters, there’s been a billboard in New York City’s Times Square advertising Fort Lauderdale as a luxe destination and coming in January is a new iPhone application called ivisitlauderdale. With new direct flights on Virgin America and Jet Blue from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Fort Lauderdale, another new market of sophisticated travelers is headed this way.

Yanopoulos says many beachfront resorts don’t invite the outside world in, but the W works to treat restaurant and bar guests the same way as its hotel guests.

Yanopoulos says the Gerber Group — which owns the W’s Whiskey Blue bar — was initially apprehensive about opening in Fort Lauderdale. “But once we brought them here and they saw this strip and the vision that was being created here, it didn’t take too long to convince them.”

Rande Gerber, Gerber Group principal, and his supermodel wife Cindy Crawford brought some star power to Broward when they showed up for the opening.

So does Yanopoulos think Broward County is becoming more like South Beach?

“I think Fort Lauderdale is a little more sophisticated. When I say sophisticated, I mean they’re more mature. They have a little bit higher standard of what they want in a hotel, a restaurant and a bar. This is not the rapper group that hangs out in Miami. This group is just slightly a little bit more conservative but still likes to enjoy themselves and is looking for an environment that suits them.”