The Raleigh Marriott City Center encompasses a full-service Marriott hotel adjacent to the new Raleigh Convention Center. The hotel is a 310,000 square foot, 17-story concrete structure with 400 rooms including 20 suites. Other amenities include a pool, fitness center, and more than 15,000 square feet of technologically-advanced meeting space featuring a 9,000 square-foot Grand Ballroom and another 6,000 square feet of individual/breakout meeting rooms. The Marriott sits on top of a three-level, 906-space underground connector that links it to the Convention Center. The adjoining structural steel framed Convention Center offers a vast 30,000 square-foot ballroom and more than 150,000 square feet of functional meeting space. The lobby includes several gathering places including Posta Tuscan Grille, Bar Posta and Starbucks Coffee.
After over two years of providing Preconstruction Services, Holder broke ground on the project in February of 2007. During construction, project challenges centered on coordination with adjacent properties and coordination among the various phases of construction. The City Center parking deck was constructed directly on top of an existing, three-story parking deck. Various other construction projects in the immediate area were ongoing at the time of construction, so Holder had to coordinate closely with not only nearby building owners and occupants, but with the General Contractors completing work in and around our project demarcations. Construction of the Parking Deck required careful attention to pre-existing City encroachment agreements with various private property owners. Holder organized and conducted bi-monthly meetings with these owners to keep them updated of construction activities, provided them with frequent look-ahead schedule, and created a forum to discuss any potential coordination issues.
Coordination of scope between Hotel and Deck foundation structure was critical to the project. Coordination of the lobby slab was difficult as it was both the roof of the deck and the foundation of the hotel. Holder paid close attention to the structural foam placement/thicknesses, plumbing line placement, slab pour breaks, rain leaders and plumbing that penetrated the slab (needed to be located properly and without collision), elevation changes for floor finishes such as the depressed slab for the lobby stone floor and tile for the kitchen areas (were all meticulously planned), structural coordination with columns, and many other scope details. In addition, the Hotel electrical utilities were run through the Parking Deck structure. For each of these issues, Holder coordinated not only the installation of work but worked extensively to correctly allocate cost between Owners as well as properly document design among the Design Team.