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/ BUILDING DIALOGUE / SEPTEMBER 2017
/ Two Hilton Hotel Brands Arrive in Boulder /
ABOVE:
Construction nears completion in
Boulder. Courtesy Michelle Meunier
Photography
accommodating the trash and recycling companies here in Boulder. It’s
unique and it gives Kathleen (Bates) the opportunity to keep the back-of-
house functions separated from the front of house – the public realm. It
means there’s really no back door on either of these two buildings.”
The Look and Feel of Boulder
According to Johnson, Mack and Bates, from the beginning they have
been focused on creating hotels that are not only on-brand, but hotels that
will fit in with the urban fabric of Boulder.
“Sage has a great visionary approach to creating these unique, high-qual-
ity hotels,” says Johnson. “It was important that the architecture and design
for each hotel represent the Hilton brand, while also providing an original
experience that felt unique to Boulder.”
To achieve that Boulder aesthetic, inside each hotel Johnson Nathan
Strohe utilized a blend of organic materials such as wood and stone along-
side warm metals like natural copper and bronze. The skin of the hotels
will feature a mix of stucco and red sandstone (a Boulder signature if there
ever was one) quarried from Lyons, just 17 miles up the road.
According to Bates and Johnson, Sage’s flexibility with their design stan-
dards is what allowed for the architecture to take on a “Boulder” look, in-
stead of a cookie-cutter approach.
“These hotels are going to go way beyond the brands,” says Bates. “Each
has a real boutique feel in many ways including the display of local art-
work, mostly works from CU alumni, faculty and students. We will also
be supporting the community by adopting the zero waste initiative that
is very important to the mayor and the city. Sage felt it was important to
support the values that are meaningful to Boulder and show we want to be
a larger part of this great community.”
What You Don’t Hear, Matters
With the location being in one of the noisiest areas in the city, sound-
proofing is just one of the details that Johnson Nathan Strohe, Milender
White and Sage Hospitality have been focused on.
“I can tell you that Sage has put every last detail and focus into selling a
good night’s sleep,” says Mack. “That starts with absolute quiet and the STC
ratings. They have held us to a high standard and we are designing and
achieving that in the field.” (Sound Transmission Class is an integer rating
of how well a building partition attenuates airborne sound.)
White said that a good night’s sleep is critical to not only the business
traveler but to the leisure traveler as well. And with 28th Street and a shop-
ping mall to the east, and shopping centers next door and across the street,
(not to mention one of Boulder’s busiest streets right out front), it was es-
sential to meet the challenge of providing a quiet sleeping environment.
Focused on the Finish
Thirty months into this project, Mack says they have excavated 85,000
cubic yards of soil, poured 21,000 cubic yards of concrete and by the time
things wrap up they will have 1.4 million man hours utilized to create the
hotel.
According to Byron White, President and CEO of Milender White (and
a fellow University of Colorado alum), the project is “tracking six weeks
ahead of the contractual completion date and is coming in under budget.”
Considering the tight site conditions, zero lot line and being on an in-
sanely busy street corner, these accomplishments seem all the more im-
pressive.
Back on the sunny deck across the street from the project site, Johnson
decides to add to his original answer about pride with a nod to design.
“In terms of the actual design of the building, the thing that I’m the most
proud of is the way that the two hotels are going to fit with the campus
and the office building and its connectivity to the neighboring commer-
cial and residential areas. It’s such a big project, but it will really fit into the
urban fabric and the style of architecture. They are going to be beautiful
additions to Boulder.”
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PROJECT TEAM
DEVELOPERS:
Sage Hospitality and
NAI Shames Makovsky
GENERAL CONTRACTOR:
Milender White Construction
ARCHITECT:
Johnson Nathan Strohe