Hotel construction project (updated nov 26)

[stormkroe]

Couldn't add anymore pics to the OP so you'll find the new ones at the end.
Thanks

Here's a few pics to get the context flowing.
This is very similar, although smaller than, our finished project.

I finally got the updated prints, reflecting the change from 79 units to 95.

I haven't had time to go to site and get some real pics, we're trying to finish 2 other hotels (and many other things) right now as well. Hoping tomorrow I'll be able to.
NOV 26
Finally grabbed a few shots.
This is the framing station where walls are prefabbed. We have to do things a bit differently this time of year up here. Ordinarily a building like this would be done 'build and stand', where walls are built in place and stood up on the spot. However, -30C° windchills and a foot of snow make pouring a 20,000 sq ft slab very troublesome. To combat the weather, the walls are prebuilt, stood in place, and the first floor is 'capped' with the floor system of the 2nd floor. Now that it's mostly enclosed, 6 to 10 large (500k+btu each) heaters are ran to create a proper environment for a good concrete pour.

This is a few piles of prebuilt walls, and incidentally, my grey f350

This is a pic of the footing and frost wall. We need a depth of 4 feet or greater to avoid frost heaves at this latitude. On a building this size, the minimum footing thickness is 10 inches (compared to 6 on a large house) with most of it actually 12 inches and above. There is 4 courses of large rebar (5/8" iirc), again compared to the single 3/8" requirement for house footings, as well as vertical bars approx 16" spaced. The vertical bars protrude from the top of the frost wall, and are bent over to tie into the slab rebar grid. Rebar must overlap 2 feet and the overlap must be tied in 2 or more places.

Here is a wider shot, notice a few of the indirect-fired heaters. You'll also notice the black spots along the frost wall. This is where the 2 sides of the forms are connected together with heavy guage tie wire. There are plastic cones on each end of the wire inside of the form that aid in form removal, and they leave small indentations in the concrete. To keep the exposed end of the cross-wire from rusting through (thus creating a water penetration), the indentations are filled with tar, then the entire exterior side of the frost wall is tarred as well.

A few notes:
Wood framed buildings rarely go above 5 stories (many areas have building codes prohibiting it outright), there is a HUGE amount of shrinkage to deal with at those heights. Depending on the dryness of the wood during construction, a 5 story building can lose almost 2 inches of height from compression.
Also, the town/city fire department abilities determine the maximum building height (we are limited to 4 stories), which increases costs quite a bit (anything 3 or more stories requires an elevator and above that footprint costs more than adding another floor).
I think I covered most things. Feel free to ask any questions.

Original post
One of my projects just starting this year is a medium (95 suite w/pool) hotel, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in pics/description of the process from start to finish. If so, I'll rename this thread and start dropping off pics throughout the build. The whole process takes 10 to 14 months. It will be fantastically boring to most people, but if you've ever wondered about commercial projects it could be a good read for you. If there doesn't seem to be any interest I'll let it sail the pages of the forum to the forgotten posts of yesteryear.
Yes? No?

http://forums.anandtech.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/

 

[Markbnj]

I'd read it.

 

[Chapbass]

Same

 

[Dr. Zaus]

very interested.

 

[Jerem]

I'd certainly read it with interest. Posting in it not so much.

 

[Humpy]

I'll read it and post about all the fuck ups and safety issues I find.

(Please post pictures of fuck ups and safety issues.)

 

[T9D]

.....

 

[zebrax2]

I'd be interested

 

[stormkroe]

Awesome. I think this is enough interest that it won't be pointless, glad to see it
Humpy, don't worry, I got 99 problems but a lack of health and safety infraction-laden pictures ain't one (not sure who they belong to though () )
T9D, interested? Like in a date or something? Don't be a gold digger. Actually, these things rarely have 'an owner', but rather and investment group. But to maybe answer your question, no I didn't buy into this one because my own projections showed 5+ years roi, and I'm happier with 3-years-or-less projects for now.
Thanks guys, on with the chlorophyll!

 

[Spydermag68]

Ttiwop

 

[postmortemIA]

looking forward for the pics, videos too...

 

[stormkroe]

I forgot that editing an OP doesn't bump.

 

[doubledeluxe]

Sounds interesting.

 

[doubledeluxe]

The interesting part would be the mistakes to avoid.

 

[stormkroe]

Nov 26 update bump.

 

[Red Squirrel]

There's tons of hotels going up in my city, I find it odd, there's not much attractions here, but supposedly it's needed. Hockey tournaments and stuff, I guess.

There was one hotel that looked like it was mostly all wood construction. I think they recently changed codes to allow up to 6 stories. I read that somewhere but I forget where. It was all plywood for the longest time. People jokingly called it Plywood Inn and Suites. This one is only like 3ish stories though, it's a wide building but not tall. Guessing there are various requirements on firewalls to split things up. There's another one near my house that was mostly all prefab concrete. Actually it seems most of them are prefab now, is that pretty much the way things are built these days? It's kind of neat to see how fast the stories go up once they get the foundation done, that's for sure. Lots of pile driving and stuff beforehand though.

 

[Lifted]

I was going to ask what you're role in the project is, as I thought you were on the developers side, but today's update answers that.

However, -30C° windchills and a foot of snow

Damn, that sure puts things into perspective. Today I was bitching about how cold it was indoors at a new property the company just bought with no office and no heat, yet. It was 36 and raining outside, which is practically tropical compared to the conditions you're working in. Respect.

Is this hotel for a large hospitality chain? We might be working with some of the same people.

The hotels we put up in NYC have a fairly small footprint but make up for it in height. I grabbed some photos from some of the upper floors of a hotel we're finishing up. I'll look for them and post them here. Nice view.

 

[pete6032]

Will this be a LEED certified building?

 

[stormkroe]

I was going to ask what you're role in the project is, as I thought you were on the developers side, but today's update answers that.



Damn, that sure puts things into perspective. Today I was bitching about how cold it was indoors at a new property the company just bought with no office and no heat, yet. It was 36 and raining outside, which is practically tropical compared to the conditions you're working in. Respect.

Is this hotel for a large hospitality chain? We might be working with some of the same people.

The hotels we put up in NYC have a fairly small footprint but make up for it in height. I grabbed some photos from some of the upper floors of a hotel we're finishing up. I'll look for them and post them here. Nice view.

Actually, this entire area of development was my idea, my investor's group was eventually broken up because the closer we got to making this a reality, the more 'roadblocks' appeared. The last straw was some ridiculous story about traffic impact assessment taking 2 or more years. Wouldn't you know it, shortly after we disbanded one of the very large developers was in there doing it instead of us. A hard lesson learned: only reveal your great ideas as 'just good enough to break even at best'.
As for me personally, my company is wiring this building. On a project like this, that means electrical, security, intrusion, fire alarm, HVAC control, TV, telephone, and data.
The owners if this hotel have several Holiday Inns, though this particular building will be under a name you've never heard (I think there are less than 15 of them).
My company will be doing our second Best Western in the spring, just toying with the plans for a Holiday Inn for the end of next summer, I haven't repeated enough chains to have a favourite, they all seem to be about the same pita

 

[Humpy]

Awesome. Seeing those pictures made my feet cold.

How were the footings and foundation walls constructed with regards to the weather? Tented and heated or some special winter mix? Both?

It is common in residential construction to pour the basement slab later in the schedule. Both in the winter and summer it provides better conditions for curing. It's cool to see the same concept transferred to a large scale.

 

[doubledeluxe]

Interesting but why are you doing it this time of year? Is it cost effective? I would assume that things take much longer and are harder to do when you have frozen ground and bad weather.

 

[Lifted]

Hmmm, we may be actually working with some of the same people then.

Electricians are the best. I work with our electrical sub on a fairly regular basis and they're the only sub that manages to get a job done when they say they will, for the most part. They even came through for us by rigging up a muffler on the genny just before inspection. I assume you're familiar with their forever changing technology brand standards guide.

Here's some shots from the hotel we're finishing up, first shot was when it was only 2 or 3 floors poured. I threw in some hvac photos (I don't know much about that stuff).

http://imgur.com/a/13Zhi

 

[stormkroe]

Awesome. Seeing those pictures made my feet cold.

How were the footings and foundation walls constructed with regards to the weather? Tented and heated or some special winter mix? Both?

It is common in residential construction to pour the basement slab later in the schedule. Both in the winter and summer it provides better conditions for curing. It's cool to see the same concept transferred to a large scale.

I just got new Stanley steel-toe, high-impedance boots 'rated' for -76°
The footings and frost wall were poured a few weeks ago when we had some warmer (around -5°C) weather, and had some accelerant added for good measure. Winter hits fast and hard here, we might not see grass again until March.
You're right about resi buildings using this same method, though depending on the level of 'hurry' the GC is in, they will often pour the slab first up here. First off, because they can frame interior walls and stand in place before the first floor joists are laid, second, it's a bit easier to pour when you're not constrained to windows/window wells, and thirdly, the slab moisture is virtually gone, allowing things like drywall and ESPECIALLY hardwood to start right away.

 

[stormkroe]

Interesting but why are you doing it this time of year? Is it cost effective? I would assume that things take much longer and are harder to do when you have frozen ground and bad weather.

These are never planned to start in November, they just always seem to wind up doing so. Everyone loves to say 'we'll break ground in spring', I'll faint if I ever see it happen. For instance, I have a big grocery store project that I've finally got to do some work on last week, my contract had us scheduled in for august 14th lol.
It's not cost effective really, but in a year long project you're going to have to face winter sometime. Especially in a country that has 9 months of it

 

[stormkroe]

Hmmm, we may be actually working with some of the same people then.

Electricians are the best. I work with our electrical sub on a fairly regular basis and they're the only sub that manages to get a job done when they say they will, for the most part. They even came through for us by rigging up a muffler on the genny just before inspection. I assume you're familiar with their forever changing technology brand standards guide.

Here's some shots from the hotel we're finishing up, first shot was when it was only 2 or 3 floors poured. I threw in some hvac photos (I don't know much about that stuff).

http://imgur.com/a/13Zhi

Hey thanks for the complement! I often put in 90+ hour weeks to make sure no one is waiting on us, if it's a trend of the whole trade I would say that's because we have to wait on the most trades of anyone, and are very sensitive to timelines.
I recognize those air handlers in your pics, I wired Bac-net controls and vfd for several similar units of those in a new school a few towns over. Pretty impressive when you can walk inside your air conditioner
Those are great pics, here's a night shot from the roof of a new Hampton inn (122 units, only 5 stories), I didn't wire it but was helping a friend's business correct some faulty control wiring.