The Developers of the Omni-Charlotte Hotel had one major goal in mind when they broke ground on their luxury facility located in downtown Charlotte-have the hotel open by the holiday season. With the hotel construction site located in an extremely confined space due to its location, in addition to being located on an active railroad track, this project seemed a daunting task for its constructors.

Draper & Associates was brought in early on in the projects development to prepare a project schedule using a fast-track construction approach.

The completion of this convention hotel was to complete a three adjoining building complex that shares both an open plaza and an enclosed atrium (part of the hotel construction) with two other structures. Amenities of the 21-floor hotel facility includes 411 guest rooms and hospitality suites, meeting rooms, a grand ballroom, a grand atrium, kitchens, restaurants, and back-of-house areas. The hotel also contains both a motor lobby level and a main lobby level with a full compliment of restaurants and shops.

The general contractor provided preconstruction and construction phase services for this 319,350 square-foot, 23-level project. Through cost analysis and value engineering during design development and by fast-tracking construction as the design allowed, the project met all of the owner's required goals for quality, schedule and cost.

Due to the fast-track construction nature of this project, Draper & Associates developed an Overall Project Schedule initially containing foundation and structure activities along with detailed design completion activities. Because design and construction were overlapped, the project was completed and the hotel opened within 17 months of the start of construction and well before the holiday season.