An Eye for Luxury

New Hotel Construction Focuseson High-Tech Services and Amenities

By Peter Fretty

High-end hotels and conference centers oncepopped up with little variance, inside or out,among them. Times have changed, however, andthe market has clearly shifted toward the future. Hotelchains and progressive independent operators are nowanxious to find new ways to set themselves apart from thecompetition. One critical tool they depend on to accomplishthat goal is technology.

Advances in the electronic world happen at a breakneck pace; and fortunately, the construction industry has risen to the challenge, offering hotel owners invaluable input on new technology and creative designs for once-standard services and amenities.

A Unique Team Approach

The Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in Coralville, Iowa, is scheduled for completion in October 2006. Minneapolis-based general contractor M.A. Mortenson Company is managing the project. The new hotel will be a keystone facility for the Iowa River Landing, a brownfields redevelopment project in the Coralville-Iowa City vicinity.

The Coralville construction includes a 286-room upscale hotel featuring 60,000 square feet of exhibition and meeting space. The project also includes a 15,000-square-foot grand ballroom and a 7,000-square-foot junior ballroom, as well as 7,500 square feet of IACC-approved flexible meeting space, a full-service restaurant, and a lobby bar.

According to Jim Moryn, Project Manager at Parsons Electric LLC, the city of Coralville owns and is financing the facility and has set standards for what it wants in the hotel. “It is great to see the unique level of government involvement in this project,” says Moryn. The design-build crew is working closely with Marriott’s corporate construction crew, since the international hotel chain is the intended lessee.

“This was a learning experience for everyone involved,” says Moryn. “Understandably, the Marriott crew has its own design and construction standards that we have incorporated; and it’s been great working with someone who has successfully put together such a large number of projects.”

Seeing the Scope

The Coralville Marriott is a prime example of a hotel openly embracing the advances of technology. Parsons took on all voice and data cabling, video display cabling, coaxial cabling, and wireless LAN cabling. The firm is managing subcontracts for the security alarm system, the closed-circuit television system, and the intercom systems. All cabling to the guest rooms is CAT5e. Fiber optic cable is being used for the facility backbone and exhibit hall.

“This hotel uses every element of technological systems, which is not something you routinely see in commercial construction,” says Moryn. “Blending all these components together was interesting and enlightening.”

Staying One Step Ahead

According to Moryn, one of the project’s biggest challenges has been working to keep the electrical and technology-based design components ahead of construction, since the two started within weeks of one another. “On such a tight schedule, we had to place conduit everywhere we could foresee a future need, even if we didn’t know whether the project would require it,” he says. “Fortunately, this paid off. As we work toward completion, various needs have come into the picture at late stages. Since the conduit is already in place, we have had no problems complying with revisions.”

It was evident, Moryn adds, that M.A. Mortenson Company focused on bringing the whole designbuild team together to make the project a success. “Using a group of people who have worked with each other on past projects definitely helps keep jobs in sync,” he says. “This project is a perfect example of cohesion between various contractor teams benefiting the whole.”

Making the Old New Again

The Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis provides a solid example of what can occur when progressive investors decide to blend old and new. Once completed, the innovative structure will be a 60-room boutique hotel with an art gallery, custom fixtures, and video art. General contractor Ryan Companies, US, Inc., is managing construction.

Parsons Technologies is bringing all of its technology expertise to bear on this project. In addition to traditional voice, data, and CATV cabling infrastructure, the group is providing cabling and control equipment for integrated access control, video surveillance cameras, and a burglar alarm system.

Colleen Moravek, Technologies Project Manager at Parsons, enjoys using all the firm’s talents on one project to ensure everything meets or exceeds investor expectations. “In many instances, the components we are doing are standard for our company, but we have rarely brought everything together in one cohesive effort,” she says. “The team dynamic has definitely been exciting.”

Linking Old and New

According to Moravek, the Chambers project is interesting because it links two existing structures with new construction to form a U-shaped facility. “For us, this means we can’t simply run cables from one side to the other, in part because the elevations are not identical and the link is not in place,” she says.

Uneven elevations between the existing structures created challenges for the electrical team as well. “A majority of the branch and feeder conduit needed to be surface mounted,” says Parsons Project Manager Jeff Ritchie. “This meant more coordination with the other trades was needed due to the lack of above-ceiling space available. Vertical penetration was made through existing floors, and we had to be careful not to jeopardize the structural integrity of the existing buildings.”

With this fast-track project, the contractor started building before finalizing all the details. “This is always challenging. Revisions start to stack up as obstacles appear or new ideas enter the picture,” says Moravek. “Decisions come quickly, and we have to get the appropriate cable in the walls before they sheetrock.”

Full-Service Technology

To help realize the desired boutique atmosphere for the Chambers, Parsons is providing a range of services, including design and installation of audio systems for the restaurants and lounges, banquet rooms, courtyard, and hotel common areas, such as elevator lobbies, guest room corridors, and the front desk area.

High-speed Internet access will be offered throughout the building via traditional and wireless connections. Parsons Technologies is coordinating the cabling infrastructure for these systems, as well as for special systems provided by others, such as telephone and POS. The telephone system will include cordless phones for guest use, digital phones, and voice-over-IP phones.

Voice and data cabling, the video art system, coaxial cabling, wireless LAN cabling, the security alarm system, and the closed-circuit television system are all under way. The data cabling in the Chambers Hotel project is CAT6 to the guest rooms; the voice cables are all CAT5e. The owners have decided to run a CAT6 cable to TV locations for future IP TV, along with the standard coaxial cable. Fiber optic cable will also be placed as part of the facility backbone.

Luxury Lighting

When investors embarked on this project, they clearly wanted the Chambers to have all the latest technologies in place while capitalizing on the beauty of the existing structures. The latter aspect is crucial, since the hotel will display many works of art.

“The owner put luxury and art on the same level,” says Greg Ottum, Senior Project Manager for Ryan Companies.“We even brought in a New York-based lighting designer to get the right look and feel.” Parsons took the creative lighting designs and started looking for hard-to-find custom fixtures. “In some cases, they took just a concept or picture and turned it into a mock-up so the owner could look at and touch it,” says Ottum.

Parsons assisted the lighting manufacturer in fabricating the more than 15 different styles of custom fixtures for the owner/architect to approve. “All told, it was about a five- or six- month process,” says Ritchie. “Many of these fixtures changed in design, color, finish, and even the light source to best fit the application.”

The unique quality of the fixtures custom made for the Chambers project was not lost on the Parsons electrical team. “We took great care in the installation of each one,” says Marlin Kaelberer, Project Manager for Parsons.

The influence of art in the hotel’s lighting scheme does not end with the fixtures. In the Chambers’s public areas, including restaurants, lounges, and courtyards, all lighting is based on an electronic lighting-control system, allowing the staff to set different moods depending on the event or feel they require. The hotel’s exterior lighting is equipped with a LED system that produces programmable effects. “These effects on the exterior surfaces can change to almost any color, flash, blink, and give the appearance of lights chasing each other at varying speeds and color around the building,” says Ritchie. “Another aspect of the exterior lighting scheme is ‘flying candles’ over the courtyard. In this area, there are approximately 40 cylinders glowing like a candle, spaced at different elevations 20 to 50 feet above your head in a 40-by-40-foot square. These candles will be suspended by cables stretched between the two existing buildings, allowing the cylinders to sway in the breeze.”

When the Chambers is complete, guests will also see state-of-the-art video art plasma screens throughout building corridors. They will also find video art in their rooms and bathrooms. “This is a great example of how well past architectural beauty and technological advances can coexist,” says Moravek. The work on the Chambers in Minneapolis and the Marriott in Coralville demonstrates the increasing importance of providing cutting-edge communication and entertainment services. The hotels of the future will use features like highdefinition television; wireless connectivity for phones, computers, and PDAs; and other advances to draw customers and get a leg up on the competition.