Hotels
Owner:
High Cotton Ventures, LLC
Design:
Woodward Design Group (Larry H. Case, AIA) and Trapolin Architects (Peter Trapolin, AIA)
Size:
323,000 Square Feet
Budget:
$37,000,000
Completion:
May, 2005
Marriott Convention Center Hotel
Located just across from the Convention Center is the Marriott Convention Center Hotel. Woodward Design+Build designed and constructed this facility for High Cotton Ventures, LLC, and formed a joint venture with Trapolin Architects for design services. This 333 room, full-service Marriott Hotel features a restaurant, 20,000 square feet of meeting and ballroom space, a health and fitness center, and all within a building package consistent with the historical needs of the warehouse district.
Unique features of this building include the complete restoration of the 1850’s blue-rated historic cotton warehouse. In addition, a 108 car parking garage is located beneath the ground level of the building. As is the challenge with most projects within an urban setting, space for parking is always critical. Often times, many architectural elements are sacrificed to accommodate the necessary parking for a facility. Woodward, along with their team of in-house design professionals and Trapolin Architects, created a plan to save the historic facade of the cotton warehouse, while creating a subterranean garage structure only 1,000 feet from the Mississippi River. This challenging endeavor required the use of 1,200 linear feet of sheet pile and more than 4,000 yards of concrete placed in the basement, to create a structure heavy enough to withstand the considerable forces imposed by the water table and the adjacent river. More than 1,000 wood and pre-cast piles were driven at the site and closely monitored to prevent damage to any adjacent structures.
The building structure consists of 15 elevated post tension concrete decks. Tolerances are critical for this project, as the underside of each deck acts as the ceiling for each hotel guest room. Further constraints required that the entire hotel be constructed in only a 20-month time frame.
The exterior of the building is a glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) cladding system. Most of the exterior cladding components were fabricated many months prior to their erection, with concrete elevated slabs used for their connection.
