 |
|
A complete lighting restoration and new period furnishings helped to re-create the 1920’s look of the Palmer House Hilton’s Grand Lobby. |
Chicago's Palmer House Hilton holds the record for the longest continuously operated hotel in North America. It was originally built in 1871 by Potter Palmer, one of America's first millionaire developers. When it was rebuilt after the Great Chicago Fire it became the first hotel in the U.S. to put a telephone in every room. It also pioneered the idea of putting retail shops in its arcade, and it was widely known for its luxurious ballrooms.
By 2005, however, the Palmer House was in need of significant capital improvements. Marketing studies came back with the same message: The hotel and its retail offering had to be drastically repositioned to meet the demands of today's traveler and consumer.
Although the Hilton Corporation had restored several ballrooms, many of the 14 guest-room floors had not been touched in over a decade, nor had there been any significant improvement to the building's infrastructure. The plumbing and mechanical chases had been in place since 1925. The exterior was in decent shape but old-fashioned fire escapes disfigured the prominent State Street façade.
Chicago architects Loebl Schlossman & Hackl called for 930 guest rooms to be remodeled along with 54 new suites supported by a new executive-level penthouse. Much more than a room remodeling project, the 1.2 million-sf, $170 million renovation included updating the building's retail frontage, restoring the lobbies, ballrooms, and public spaces, adding a new restaurant, club bar, and fitness center, and converting the lower level into an underground parking garage.
The Hilton Hotels Corporation, together with new owner, Thor Equities, naturally wanted to keep the doors open during the entire 26-month construction schedule—preferably at a minimum 85% occupancy. The owner/hospitality team coordinated its operations with general contractor Pepper Construction and interior architect ForrestPerkins to resolve hidden conditions, control noise, and keep the dust under control.
“The project was a Chicago landmark, which brings its own set of challenges,” said Lucien Lagrange, AIA, principal of Lucien Lagrange Architects, who has designed the renovations of such Chicago landmarks as the Carbon & Carbide Building (now the Hard Rock Hotel) and the Blackstone Hotel. —Jeffrey Yoders, Senior Associate Editor
Related Stories
| Mar 3, 2011
HDR acquires healthcare design-build firm Cooper Medical
HDR, a global architecture, engineering and consulting firm, acquired Cooper Medical, a firm providing integrated design and construction services for healthcare facilities throughout the U.S. The new alliance, HDR Cooper Medical, will provide a full service design and construction delivery model to healthcare clients.
| Mar 1, 2011
New survey shows shifts in hospital construction projects
America’s hospitals and health systems are focusing more on renovation or expansion than new construction, according to a new survey conducted by Health Facilities Management magazine and the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE). In fact, renovation or expansion accounted for 73% of construction projects at hospitals responding to the survey.
| Feb 22, 2011
HDR Architecture names four healthcare directors
Four senior professionals in HDR Architecture’s healthcare program have been named Healthcare directors.
| Feb 11, 2011
Iowa surgery center addresses both inpatient and outpatient care
The 12,000-person community of Carroll, Iowa, has a new $28 million surgery center to provide both inpatient and outpatient care. Minneapolis-based healthcare design firm Horty Elving headed up the four-story, 120,000-sf project for St. Anthony’s Regional Hospital. The center’s layout is based on a circular process flow, and includes four 800-sf operating rooms with poured rubber floors to reduce leg fatigue for surgeons and support staff, two substerile rooms between each pair of operating rooms, and two endoscopy rooms adjacent to the outpatient prep and recovery rooms. Recovery rooms are clustered in groups of four. The large family lounge (left) has expansive windows with views of the countryside, and television monitors that display coded information on patient status so loved ones can follow a patient’s progress.
| Feb 11, 2011
Two projects seek to reinvigorate Los Angeles County medical center
HMC Architects designed two new buildings for the Los Angeles County Martin Luther King, Jr., Medical Center as part of a $360 million plan to reinvigorate the campus. The buildings include a 120-bed hospital, which involves renovation of an existing tower and several support buildings, and the construction of a new multi-service ambulatory care center. The new facilities will have large expanses of glass at all waiting and public areas for unobstructed views of downtown Los Angeles. A curved glass entrance canopy will unite the two buildings. When both projects are completed—the hospital in 2012 and the ambulatory care center in 2013—the campus will have added more than 460,000 sf of space. The hospital will seek LEED certification, while the ambulatory care center is targeting LEED Silver.
| Feb 9, 2011
Hospital Construction in the Age of Obamacare
The recession has hurt even the usually vibrant healthcare segment. Nearly three out of four hospital systems have put the brakes on capital projects. We asked five capital expenditure insiders for their advice on how Building Teams can still succeed in this highly competitive sector.
| Jan 31, 2011
HDR Architecture Releases Evidence-based Design Videos
As a follow-up to its book Evidence-based Design for Healthcare Facilities, HDR Architecture, Inc. has released three video case studies that highlight evidence-based design principles in action.
| Jan 31, 2011
CISCA releases White Paper on Acoustics in Healthcare Environments
The Ceilings & Interior Systems Construction Association (CISCA) has released an extensive white paper “Acoustics in Healthcare Environments” for architects, interior designers, and other design professionals who work to improve healthcare settings for all users. This white paper serves as a comprehensive introduction to the acoustical issues commonly confronted on healthcare projects and howbest to address those.
| Jan 21, 2011
Research center built for interdisciplinary cooperation
The Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital, in Houston, the first basic research institute for childhood neurological diseases, is a 13-story twisting tower in the center of the hospital campus.
