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Issue link: https://ccr-mag.epubxp.com/i/190248
Looking up The demands have been challenging – working with malls, permitting, union malls, making sure the contractors are meeting their time schedules. Retailers can't miss any of their sell time. For our on demand service we're just reactive maintenance. Whatever is needed we provide. It's 24/7. We're there for them. The stores can contact us directly through their systems. The phone calls are less, but the updates are constant and frequent. Sue Burke, Hilton Worldwide: In our architecture and construction divisions, we are on a push right now for ROI projects – LED lighting conversions, water source conversions. My most pressing project is a 460-room renovation at Fess Parker's Doubletree Resort in Santa Barbara [Calif.]. Along with that renovation, not only are we changing all soft and case goods, but we're also going to repipe the hot water piping. This will be in a fully occupied hotel. It's a challenge. but we have it fgured out. We're going to run pipes side by side, and then do cutovers as we release space. On top of that is our scheduled compression. All of the hotels we're working on are occupied spaces. We don't shut down any hotels to do any renovations, whether we're doing guest rooms, public restrooms, restaurants, ballroom space [etc.]. We could have meetings going on next door like this one, and we could be hanging wallpaper and carpet at the same time. It's a lot of scheduled coordination with the hotels, which want it done yesterday. I have to work very diligently, not only with the hotel operations side, but also with all my contractors and subcontractors. We can't have noise. CCR: How does it work with guests and groups? Is it a seamless operation? Burke: Yes. You have to work very hard, but it's seamless. When we started the renovation at Fess Parker, there were eight different buildings, so we could take a whole building at a time. We take the third foor and second foor, and occupy the frst foor for fve days with a buffer in between. Once we get done with the second foor, the foor is emptied. If it's a highrise, we have the luxury of taking off a foor at a time. So it's doable. It's a lot of preplanning. We have learned that it is better to pre-warn the guests so they know what they are in for. "We've been working on our shop-in-shop concept, working with the design to see it all fts into the different department stores." – Amy Ralph, BCBG Jacqui Lee, Cassidy Turley: Back to school and the beginning of the year are the biggest times a year, so we're condensing construction as much as possible to try and hit these store opening dates. We're already looking to 2014 and planning out what stores will open when. The majority of the stores – we do 40 in a year open-in January, February and March just to get those sales. That turns out to be about 25 stores. We're getting site surveys ordered, getting designs done and getting bids from general contractors and architects. Come January, we have these stores built out in December, and then have a month to breathe before we have to turn them back over to our clients. Amanda Thevenot, BCBG: Our shops are kind of a major priority for us, making sure they're designed consistently with our retail experience. We want a customer who goes into a shop-in-shop at Bloomingdale's, for example, to get the same experience and same feeling they get when they walk into one of our fagship retail stores. We're also doing a lot of international work, making sure we design everything in house [etc.]. We're always making sure materials are consistent, and that the look and feel, and quality is consistent. 50 CommerCial ConstruCtion & renovation — September : OctOber 2013