Spotlight on Entertainment/Hospitality Projects Certain to Boost Texas Tourism

A Terminal Runs Through It

Charting the Course for DFW's new Grand Hyatt Hotel

By Lesley Hensell

There are endless configurations for hotel building. And it's not unusual to see a hotel's conference and banquet facilities in a separate building from its guest rooms, perhaps in an adjacent building or across a street.

But the Grand Hyatt Hotel - under construction at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport - is introducing a new twist on a familiar theme: The single-design hotel is bisected by an airport terminal.

Construction of the Grand Hyatt is part of the airport's five-year, $2.7 billion Capital Development Program. The centerpiece of the renovation is International Terminal D, a 2-million-sq.-ft. terminal that will someday provide service for approximately 12.8 million passengers each year. Many of these future travelers, when walking through the concourse, will pass through the heart of the new hotel, right over the hotel's lower-level meeting spaces, and below its lobby and guest-room tower. Because the hotel is part of the airport terminal, special security features became part of the construction and design plans, said Clay Paslay, DFW executive vice president of airport development.

"After Sept 11., we went back and did a complete blast analysis on the facility and examined our planned structural systems," he said. "We then upgraded the structural systems inside the hotel itself, including floors, beams and columns." Although baggage-screening machines will not be part of the hotel upon opening, the capability to install them does exist, Paslay added.

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Beneath the terminal's concourse, the hotel will offer 17,100 sq. ft. of ballrooms, banquet rooms and conference facilities. The lobby stands one level above the terminal's concourse and can be accessed from the landside of the new terminal via escalators. Access to the hotel will not require a security screening. But hotel guests entering the terminal will have to stop at a security checkpoint.

Extending vertically are eight levels of guest rooms, topped by a rooftop swimming pool and spa. All told, the $58.7 million project will cover nearly 304,000 sq. ft. DFW Airport will own the hotel and Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels Corp. will manage it.

Even though the concourse and hotel are separate entities, they share some systems, such as fire alarms and water heating and cooling, Clay Paslay said.

"This is a cast-in-place facility with pretty straightforward construction," Paslay said. "The challenges arise from the fact that it's integrated into the terminal."

The hotel's design, which sandwiches the terminal, created unusual complexity and required a great deal of coordination with the terminal construction team, said Elliott Goodman, project manager for Dallas-based Austin Commercial Inc., the general contractor for the hotel. Equipment could not be placed close to the building. On the air side, cranes had difficulty reaching the structure; on the land side, an elevated road could not handle the heavy loads.

"The ballroom level is at grade and makes up the footprint of the hotel," Goodman said "So that means our lobby level stands 50 ft. above the concourse and 100 ft. above the ground."

Tackling such logistics required immense planning and coordination, Goodman added. Deliveries had to be coordinated with several groups so that space would be available to offload and would not hold up work on the terminal.

"When you take the elevator from the ballroom, it's 100 ft. up before the next stop," Goodman said. "This adds time and complexity to everything. And there were more under-floor penetrations that had to be coordinated. If this were a standalone project, this would not be something to worry about. But we had plumbing, ductwork and piping for the concourse going through our areas, and vice versa.

"It's a large building with a unique design and a lot of unique features to it. We can do that. That's construction. The challenge is managing everything going on around us."
Currently, the hotel is proceeding ahead of schedule. Work is scheduled to be completed in mid-November so the hotel has time to hire and train staff before the grand opening in mid-2005.

Workers are currently finishing out guest rooms and building the rooftop swimming pool, which has its own set of challenges, Goodman said. "Water seeps," he added. "And we're installing surfaces that are submerged in water at all times. We have to focus on the waterproofing aspects of the pool to ensure it's built to high standards."

The hotel's 298 guest rooms will be oversized and offer refrigerators, high-speed Internet connections and modem/dataport connections. Custom bathrooms feature glass-enclosed showers and separate tubs with black granite tile used for floors, counters and tub-surrounds. Throughout the property, finishes reflect a contemporary Texas architecture, with limestone flooring and colorized walls.

"The finish-out is definitely on the high end," Goodman said. "We have a significant amount of millwork and other types of woodwork on the ballroom level." About 9,000 yds. of concrete were used on the project. The building's glass and metal facade consists of planes layered against each other, with a 1-in.-thick insulating acoustic glass system installed throughout to keep down noise.

The hotel's loading docks are at the building's lowest level, and the service road leading to the docks was formerly a public roadway. Since the road travels underneath the building, it is a secured-access area. All goods travel through a security checkpoint before reaching the building, Paslay said.

"We tried to think into the future as to what might be needed," Paslay said.

Owner: Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport
General Contractor: Austin Commercial Inc. Dallas
Architect of Record: Vidaud + Associates Inc., Dallas
Design Architect: HKS, Inc. Dallas
Structural Engineer: L.A. Fuess Partners, Dallas
Electrical Contractor: Mills Electrical Contractors, Dallas
MEP Engineer: Friberg Associates Inc., Fort Worth; Blum Consulting Engineers, Inc., Dallas
Mechanical Contractor: DSI, Dallas