Five-Star Ambitions at the Umstead

Owner has High Expectations for $90 Million Hotel Near Raleigh, N.C.

By Bea Quirk

It took four years - including two years of actual construction - but Ann Goodnight's dream of opening her own luxury hotel, the Umstead, in Cary, N.C., came true in January when it officially opened its doors to guests.

Located near Raleigh and its world-renown high-tech center, Research Triangle Park, the $90 million Umstead features artful furnishings and original artwork throughout; three telephones with two lines and a 42-in. plasma TV in each room; wireless access throughout; 12,000-sq-ft spa; 10,200 sq ft of meeting space; and a restaurant.

Few of the hotel's guests will realize what it took to design and build this elegant seven-story, 217,000-sq-ft facility with 150 guestrooms and suites.

Goodnight - wife of Jim Goodnight, founder and CEO of Raleigh-based SAS, one of the world's largest privately held software companies - had five-star aspirations for her project and sought out construction and design firms with established credentials in the luxury hospitality market.

If it achieves that status, the Umstead will be the first hotel in the Raleigh area to do so.

"For us, it has always been about the guest experience - about building a backdrop for the guests to remember what touched them," says Dan Hammons, an associate at Dallas-based Three Architecture and the project architect. "To be successful, the landscaping, architecture and rooms all have to work together."

Three also handled construction administration. The interiors were designed by Frank Nicholson of Boston, and Indianapolis-based Hunt Construction Group was the general contractor.

"From the beginning, and in everything we did, we kept reminding everyone of the ownership expectation," says Richard Summa, who served as the owner's rep on the project. "We were building a five-star hotel, and we did not want to sacrifice quality in any realm or discipline."

The Umstead has cost about $500 per square foot to build, compared to the typical $350 for five-star hotels.

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The exterior features rough-hewn Texas limestone, glazed glass, metal panels and stucco. Inside, the floors are polished limestone, and there's generous use of Anegre, an exotic wood from Africa, that is used for the paneling throughout the facility. There is a separate elevator for luggage and an extensive lighting system to create just the atmosphere desired. Not only is every room wireless, but a wireless system notifies rooms service if a food-service cart has been left outside the room to be picked up. Another sensor tells staff if the minibar has been used.

Goodnight put her team together early in the process, and Hunt came on board soon after Three was selected. In fact, Three was involved in the decision to hire Hunt, and then worked with them to develop a budget.

"They were willing to open their soul up to us during that process," says Tom Taylor, Three senior associate and project manager for Umstead. "Many companies aren't willing to do that."

Early on, Goodnight moved the hotel to a site about .25-mi away on the SAS Institute campus because a large pond on the new 12-acre site "added to the guest experience," Summa says. He adds that about 85% of the original design was "salvaged."

But the move also meant spending more money on landscaping, which included adding flora to attract birds. "We had to clear the site, but added pine trees and other landscaping to make the site look mature," Summa says.

The new site also required extensive soundproofing for the hotel to muffle noise from the highway.

Additionally, the soil was unsuitable, so it had to be hauled off and replaced with something more appropriate. In addition, extensive plans had to be made to accommodate construction needs and the needs of SAS's 4,000 employees to get in and out of their workplace.

Goodnight's vision for the guest experience evolved over time, although Summa says there were not an unusual number of change orders. Bob Schofield, the Unstead's managing director, says, "The value and cost of every change was evaluated against the overall mission before being put into effect."

Goodnight also made timely decisions on materials so they could be ordered well ahead of time and in stages, Schofield says. "Because the hotel is independently owned and managed, there was a total lack of bureaucracy, and the decision-making was quick - we set our own standards."

Construction

Glass is used generously on the building's exterior to maximize the use of natural light, especially in the spa. That meant the staging had to be just right so the glass was installed - so moisture couldn't get in - before the drywall was put in.

Hammons says that during the summer of 2005, when there was lots of rain, it took a lot of effort, and extensive pumping, to keep the interiors and concrete dry.

Building a five-star hotel requires a near-obsessive attention to the smallest details.

"The typical focus of projects is on productivity - a go-go-go approach," says Douglas Utt, Hunt's construction manager. "But five-star hotels require you to step back from this mentality and evaluate the minutia of how building systems components and systems work together.

"Every detail of the guest experience and how the property looks and feels from the guest perspective are planned and reviewed. Often, the smallest details become the most important."

One example involves the selection of limestone, which makes up about half the exterior. Taylor says the architects had a narrow color range for the stone, which required a careful selection and culling process to get just the right shades.

The tile work had to be perfectly aligned, and there were long discussions about the depth of reveals between wood panels in the lobby lounge.

Even the mechanical and electrical systems went beyond the typical parameters. Utt says to prevent guests from hearing such normal building noises as running water or air flow, extra insulation was installed around drain lines in the building interior, isolation joints were included in the showers and oversized ducts were used to keep air velocity low and quiet.

Technology played an important role as well. Hunt established a Prolog Web site that created a database for all the project information (including drawings, schedules and status of supplies), which each team member could access in real time. "It became our official tracking tool," Utt says.

Team members could update information or answer questions directly in to the data stream, which was made immediately available to team members, who received e-mail alerts about the new data.

"It meant we could share significant amounts of information," Utt says. "But it couldn't replace a walk through the site with the owner or architect. We had both."