Hotel Retrofitting: How to Avoid Falling into a Money Pit

SUMMARY



Eric Rahe, principal of BLT Architects, and Bob Voth, executive vice president of PHY Engineers Inc., recently create an article that dealt with building new hotels in old buildings. In the hospitality industry today, there are many hotels that are structured from existing buildings and that plays a cost of things being affordable and easy to use certain technology. Now these two gentlemen were looking forward to repurposing existing buildings in urban environments and restructuring these buildings into hotel. However, they believed that remodeling building always have three challenges when it comes to properly using certain technology. One of the first issues were knowing what is currently in the building. In urban environments, many time the old buildings that are trying to be used as hotels are old apartments or offices. Therefore, there can be difficulty renovating an old building that's been renovated in the past by different architects. The cost of breaking down walls and other things can be a bit expensive. The best way to deal with this problem would be to use 3-D laser imaging technology that can help identify certain structure issues befor the designing process. This way can limit the cost of constructions.
The second issue that this architect and engineer faced was incorporating systems in small spaces. In other words, old buildings may have small systems which may limit a few things due to small spaces. By far, this can be a big challenge to renovate an old building to a hotel since certain requirements for that building must be met.
The last issue was, of course, creating a modern experience for the guest. Service is very important in the hotel, therefore, many guests would expect high-tech, nice hotel rooms. Even though when it comes to renovating old buildings into hotels, some hotels were not build to have many wired for modern technology, so many wiring must be fixed in one single location in the rooms. Within this issue, Rahe and Voth believe that lighting was often the biggest challenge when it comes to wiring. However, just by a wireless radio frequency system, that limit the amount of wires that need to be used. In that case, the developing process became easier and pleasing for the guest and operators. As long as you were aware of the old structures, reusing that building to a hotel can work out just the way you want it.

REFLECTION

The reason I chose this article because I work at a hotel that's been reused into a new hotel. When I was hired at the Crowne Plaza, I remember being told that the Crowne Plaza was an old building before just two years ago. It took a whole year just to renovate it  from an old building into a hotel. However, the building still deals with certain structure issues. Just like from the article, it deal with incorporating system in small spaces. In a few rooms, the wiring for technologies are literally located in one single location of the room. Even though it is reuse and made better, guests would have to deal with the old structures. For example, some light switches are located outside the guest's bedroom than on the inside of their bedroom. Many guests are confused by that mix up, so we, as employees, make sure they are aware of where to locate certain things in the rooms they book. Also, even though the Crowne Plaza is renovating from an old building to a new hotel, it still face need of constructions. There will always be something new to add in every building. I sure agree on the challenges E. Rahe and B. Voth faced when it came to reconstructing an old building into a hotel. It has a whole lot of reconstruction to be done just to please every guest and operator.


Rahe, E. & Voth. B. (2011, January 4). Hotel Retrofitting: How to Avoid Falling into a Money Pit. Retrieved January 23, 2011, from Hospitality Technology: http://hospitalitytechnology.edgl.com/top-stories/Hotel-Retrofitting--How-to-Avoid-Falling-into-a-Money-Pit65728