The Curio Collection by Hilton is known for its luxurious properties, and the Valley Hotel Homewood certainly meets—if not exceeds—that reputation. We were delighted when The Robins & Morton Group asked us to be a part of the team to construct this new prestigious project in downtown Homewood.
A highly walkable popular area, downtown Homewood is known for its upscale dining and retail options, and plans for the Valley Hotel Homewood were to add a chic but comfortable boutique hotel in the area’s offerings. To make that happen on our part of the project, we spent more than a year pricing and budgeting the many items that would be needed. The lump sum construction project, which came in at just over one million dollars, included 160,000 square feet of space, and thanks to the detailed and thought-out process we created, we were able to value engineer many products to help get the project within the allotted budget without sacrificing on the must-have quality and style as the project was large in size.
In total, the project included a total of five floors, with a restaurant and coffee shop located on the first floor. The second floor included an outdoor terrace bar, meeting rooms, and a ballroom. In addition to its large size, the project also called for a wide range of high-end material types—from carpet and fitness flooring to natural stone and hardwood. In all, we installed approximately 90,000 square feet of carpet, 5,500 square feet of resilient flooring, 4,500 square feet of fitness flooring, 22,000 linear feet of millwork rubber base, 30,000 square feet of porcelain floor tile, 21,000 square feet of porcelain wall tile, 7,000 square feet of hardwood, and 1,500 square feet of natural stone flooring. The majority of these materials had to be imported—and some of the exterior concrete tile was being hand painted—which meant we had to plan extended lead times in order to have everything ready for installation so that we could meet our deadline.
As we were self-performing 100 percent of the work and the schedule was rather aggressive, we had to utilize multiple crews for installation. Our specialized teams had to take great care as many of these flooring materials included multiple patterns, which meant there was a lot that had to be considered prior to installation. In the large, open lobby we installed large format tile in a herringbone pattern, and keeping the pattern lined up correctly and level was quite a challenge. The property’s restaurant had two areas that required installation of natural stone in a unique pattern that called for many precise cuts and layouts. The hotel common area and the restaurant both had multiple areas requiring decorative tile on columns and accent walls, and the restaurant also called for this tile at its exterior entrance. We also installed carpet with a large repeated pattern on the second floor common area of the hotel, and this carpet repeated in the pre-function, meeting rooms, and ballroom. The repetition of such a large pattern carpet was difficult to install because the pattern had to be precisely matched, so it took great attention to detail and skill on the part of our installers.
In all, we completed our scope of the project successfully and on time, which meant we completed installation in just six short months. And in the end, the Valley Hotel Homewood featured the beauty and quality expected in all of its materials. “It required a lot of careful coordination on our part to make sure that we had the manpower necessary to complete on time,” said Southern Carpet, Hardwood & Tile Project Manager Chad Reagin. “There also had to be close coordination with other trades and the general contractor to ensure we all worked together as a team so that we did not cause anyone else any delays. To ensure we completed on time, we worked some weekends and extended hours. But the end result was a beautifully designed and carefully crafted property that Homewood could be proud of.”
