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SHOWCASE:
Conventional Costs
By financing the construction of a convention hotel, Houston is betting on event planners making the city a destination spot.

By John Parkinson

City civic leaders in every town understand that getting a large convention or big ticket event can generate great regional pride and bring in massive revenue. Houston, hosting both this year's Super Bowl and Major League Baseball's All-Star game, hit the jackpot twice inside of six months.

One significant catalyst for securing these national events was the Hilton Americas-Houston hotel. As a large downtown convention property, the hotel was able to help accommodate the onslaught of the national media and scores of fans flocking to the city for both games.

The city of Houston has in place what leaders hope will be the final feature that will enable the city to become the next major American venue for conventions and national events. The hotel is connected to the city's George R. Brown Convention Center, and it is walking distance to the city's business district, two sports stadiums, and a dining and entertainment district. While the hotel's existence has aided in the city's successful year of bringing in conventions and events, this project almost didn't happen.

Three's A Charm For A Backburner Project

The idea of a large downtown hotel moved through many mayoral administrations and numerous problems. The economic developers and government leaders of Houston knew they needed a hotel that could help host conventions that other American cities were getting.

In the early 1980s, the city council passed a series of resolutions and referendums calling for the development of a hotel. Nonetheless, a local economic downturn stalled the project.

In 1992, Mayor Bob Lanier–along with city council and a private developer–revisited the hotel idea, but feasibility studies and other issues prevented the project from coming to life. It wasn't until 1998, when Mayor Lee Brown appointed an exploratory committee to look into the project, that it finally received the green light to proceed.

In 2000, Mayor Brown established the Houston Convention Center Hotel Corporation. The city's non-profit corporation was created to build the hotel and Lanier was tapped as chairman. Other key highlights of the corporation's work were the board's motion to raise $285 million in tax-free bonds–thus backing the construction–and the board's decision to hire the Houston office of Gensler architectural and design firm.

Project Challenges

Shortly after Gensler was selected, the firm took charge as lead architect. With the finite deadline of the 2004 Super Bowl looming over the project, the call for experienced principal players was a necessity. Ed Grun, director of hospitality, Gensler describes the significance of this early challenge.

"What we had to do in assembling the right team was find people who had good depth in hospitality experience, so we weren't experiencing learning curves on any consultants' parts."

Gensler selected Miami, FL-based Arquitectonica to design the building and later tapped Houston contractor Turner Construction to lead general construction.

An early challenge of the construction was the laying of the foundation. Due to a short supply of concrete, the logistics of doing a downtown project, and the request to get the job done all at once,

it was necessary to pour the concrete foundation within a 48 hour period.

Over 100 cement trucks and eight concrete pumpers delivered 1.2 million pounds of concrete, spanning more than 12,000 cubic feet. It is believed to be one of Houston's largest concrete pours.

Grun explains one of the factors for the around the clock pouring. "A mat foundation requires a continuous pour in order to cure to maximum strength," states Grun.

Another significant challenge was the construction of the Skywalk. The walkway had to connect the second and third floors of the hotel to the convention center.

Grun acknowledges that the nature of the slender long span of the walkway along with the lack of resources for a centered structural support made it difficult to implement. The main skywalk from the convention center to the hotel runs perpendicular over a boulevard, so the project team didn't have the luxury of dropping a support column in the middle of the road.

Even before the skywalk glass was installed, the huge assembly weighed more than 125,000 pounds. To implement the double deck enclosed walkway, a large crane was needed. A third walkway was built from the Hilton to the garage.

Are You Ready For Some Facility Management?

The hotel's grand opening was in December 2003, and the pressure to have the hotel in superior shape for the Super Bowl arrivals just weeks later was intense. Tamas Sebestyen, director of property operations, Hilton Corporation was involved in the meetings and walk-throughs with the contractors.

"The stakes were very high; not only was the hotel's credibility on the line, but the city of Houston's. The challenge we were facing was to make sure we could commission everything on time and not let the customers test everything in the hotel," says Sebestyen, half seriously. Another major concern for Sebestyen was the hiring and training of his staff to take on the challenges associated with a contemporary hotel. Fortunately, vendors and contractors provided tutorials on how to use and service the building.

"We had 420 hours of training done by a number of the manufacturers' representatives, contractors, and service companies in various areas," says Sebestyen. Many educational sessions were videotaped, so tapes could be used for future facilities' staff and serve as a refresher course for existing employees.

HVAC And Energy Controls

The hotel uses outside air handling units to pre-treat the outside air before it goes into guest rooms. The outside air is pre-cooled to 55°F during hot, humid days, and it's pre-heated to 75°F on cold days.

This feature enables the Hilton to meet ASHRAE's requirements for air exchange. And for a city as hot and smoggy as Houston, the hotel can offer a fresh air reprieve.

Additionally, the hotel had the Continuum® Building Management System from Andover, MA-based Andover Controls installed. This system includes a three mode sequence of operation for guest room fan coil units and a customized user interface.

One continuous commissioning challenge for Sebestyen throughout the first year of the hotel's opening has been the energy controls. Prior to the Super Bowl, Sebestyen tested the hotel's automated control system's ability to heat and cool the building. While he readily admits Houston doesn't get the same type of sustained periods of cold as the northern parts of the country, the city's winter temperatures do fluctuate.

"The good thing was our customers never realized we juggled and tried to see how those [temperature] set points were really going to work out," says Sebestyen.

Sensors in each guest room allow visitors to change the temperature in their rooms plus or minus three degrees from the set point.

As the city prepared to host Major League Baseball's 2004 All-Star game in July, Sebestyen was still testing the hotel's cooling load. "The heat index in Houston yesterday was 104°; today we are testing the maximization of our air conditioning system. We are continuously fine tuning."

Communication

The Hilton houses approximately 1,200 guest rooms, two ballrooms, 30 meeting rooms, and a 1,600 car parking garage, bringing the total size of the property to 1.2 million square feet. With such a large area to cover, the property operations team uses technological aids to stay in touch with one another and maintain their responsibilities.

Along with the aforementioned energy-related automation controls the Hilton also has a Simplex Grinnell monitoring system in place for the hotel's security and safety needs. The building's automation systems connect with the property operations team via electronic communication.

Sebestyen and his staff have a Nextel radio system that alerts them–through text messages–of developing situations that can include everything from a basic HVAC equipment failure to a serious safety issue. Individual technicians are alerted to situations. If no response is made from a technician, a secondary message can be sent to another person on duty.

All Business

The hotel is not simply a conduit for guests to travel to the convention center; the Hilton boasts its own meeting spaces. All meeting rooms feature floor pockets containing wireless, high speed dial up, and video/audio ties.

The ballrooms show power lighting -400 amp, three phase, 208V and sound -200 amp, single phase 120V. The smaller ballroom is 26,000 square feet and the other is 40,000 square feet. The total meeting room space for the hotel is 93,500 square feet.

Convention planners are giving the city a second look due in large part to the Hilton. "It (the hotel) has enabled us (Houston) to garner different conventions that we were not able to attract before," Grun states. "We are able to guarantee large blocks of rooms; that is key to booking large conventions."

Houston's commitment to the hotel project now allows it to reap the rewards of a true convention city.