Hilton Garden Inn
Phoenix, AZ
Bringing Hilton Hospitality to a once abandoned office tower presented many unique challenges and opportunities. At the core was the idea, to reuse as many of the perfectly good bones of an existing ten story structure as possible, while providing much needed quality Hotel Rooms and 1,900 SF of meeting space to the community.
Preserving valuable resources by reusing the building structure and skin was an obvious choice for environmental and cost reasons. On the other hand it meant working with existing bay spacing and openings as much as possible, while meeting Hilton's brand standards. The existing pre-cast exterior skin, soon found itself with new openings while others were filled in. The result - 192 beautifully designed rooms, with all the modern amenities travelers expect from the Hilton Brand. Good design and development.
The Hilton Garden Inn is located across from Gateway Community College and nearby businesses including Avnet, Cutter Aviation, Honeywell, Federal Express, Pacificare, Bank of America and General Electric. These corporations will finally be able to access quality meeting space and 3 star hotel rooms, suitable for the modern traveler, educator, or Corporate Officer.
While the area of Van Buren Street has some notoriety, developments like the Hilton Garden Inn represent another milestone in how this area is reinventing itself. The team worked hard to make the ownership dreams come true on a tight timeline, while making the correct choices, to preserve resources and provide a high quality end product.
Some of the unique design decisions involved repurposing an interior staircase, for additional room space, which allowed the team to reach the goal of 192 rooms. This resulted in the addition of an exterior staircase, to meet exiting requirements. Other challenges of working with an existing structure involved fitting the industrial laundry facility in the basement. The team worked out a solution and the equipment was assembled on-site.
Structurally the project required some unique application of carbon fiber reinforcement in areas where openings in major structural walls had to be increased. Preserving one ton of concrete saved over 800,000 Btus of embodied energy, by doing this the project significantly reduced energy usage and carbon emissions.
The hotel restaurant will offer 3-meal service, which not only serves the guest, but also offers a great amenity to the faculty in the college across the street, as well as area businesses. A small outdoor seating area was incorporated to add to urban fabric and enliven the pedestrian environment.
This hotel location offers close proximity to art galleries, shopping, business and financial districts, as well as many area spring training facilities. Setting out with the ideas of reinvention, repurposing and recycling for this development not only allowed the team to deliver the project on time and on budget, but made it an extremely rewarding redevelopment and a source of pride for the team and ultimately the community it serves.
