900-Room Hotel Opening Date Held Despite Major Regulatory and Construction Delays

Challenge

The Wilshire Grand Hotel, the tallest building west of Chicago in the epicenter of Los Angeles planned to deliver and install 900 rooms, or two million pounds of furniture, fixtures and equipment (FF&E), over a very aggressive four-month timeframe.

Unfortunately, due to regulatory delays and construction challenges, the opening date was significantly at risk. Room installation was unable to occur as planned exacerbated by expected loading dock areas not being complete or usable.

Solution

Known for providing scalability with big company resources and a commitment to flexibility, Suddath® created a customized plan to accelerate delivery and installation to meet the dramatically compressed schedule. Partnership, creativity and Suddath’s significant labor and trucking resources were the keys to success.

In partnership with the project’s ownership group, emergency actions were taken to secure permits to close a side street adjacent to the hotel property, allowing offloading to take place closer to the main entrance and near the unfinished elevator corridor. Suddath also worked with the onsite trades to construct a temporary portable offloading dock to speed up the transfer of FF&E into the facility. The final element of the strategy included three fully staffed eight-hour shifts per day around-the-clock versus the initial plan of one 10-hour shift per day. Suddath more than doubled the project management, labor and trucking to accommodate the compressed schedule by pooling resources from multiple branch locations.

Results

• Compressed project delivery and installation time by 50%
• Met grand opening date despite two-month constructions delays
• Saved the hotel ownership millions