Pueblo Style

Isleta Hotel Joins the Fast Track

By Neal Singer

With an already existing casino successfully drawing in the crowds,
the Isleta Pueblo begins a fast-track construction of a new $50 million hotel and convention center south of Albuquerque.

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Isleta Pueblo, near Albuquerque's south side, may have had less of the elaborately-themed style of pueblos near wealthier suburbs to the north.

But Isleta's new hotel and convention center, currently under construction
next to the existing 100,000-sq-ft casino, features an imaginative and
dramatic design which should end any discrepancy in aesthetics.

Located just east of Interstate-25 about 6 mi. south of Albuquerque, the hotel will offer more than 200 rooms and suites on seven floors, including 191 standard king/queen rooms, 9 junior suites, and one governor's suite which is four times as wide as a conventional room.

Views of mountains and foothills on the east and the Rio Grande on the west are factored into the positioning of the building, says Mark Rosberg, project architect for the Cuningham Group of Minneapolis, which won the contract to design the project through a request-for-proposal put out by the tribe.

Scott Owens, project manager with Phoenix-based general contractor Hunt Construction Group says the hotel tower floors are cast-in-place structural concrete, post-tensioned to 33,000 psi.

Hunt joined with Albuquerque-based contractor Bradbury Stamm in a joint venture agreement.

"It's the most common way of building hotels," says structural engineer project manager Mark Hoel of Van Sickle, Allen & Associates Inc. of Plymouth, Minn. "You can build with floor-to-floor heights that are very short-9 ft or so.

You don't even need a ceiling. It's very common to spray the underside and it becomes a ceiling. Since it also has a total flat thickness of 8 in., it makes exterior walls shorter and saves cost. Compare it with 24-in.-thick floors of steel and metal with concrete."

According to Steve Zamora, piping general foreman for Albuquerque-based Miller Bonded, the fast-track job "was still in the design phase when we broke ground." Though upper floor layouts had not yet been finalized, the first floor layout had been decided, so his team could start working on underground piping.

"There's a lot of pipe," Zamora says.

He's happy working at the pueblo, he says, because "there's a lot of space for laydown. You can buy the material beforehand. You don't have to bring things in stages, which can be a logistical nightmare." And, he says, "employees are happy because they have a place to park close by instead of having to be bussed in."

Pete Torres, foreman for Albuquerque-based Chaparral Electric, says he started out with 60% of the plans rather than a full set. "You just ask a lot of questions," he says. His group is meeting schedule, but "some things are different in all-concrete structures. You have to install vertical sleeves in floor because you can't go back and drill later."

For a foundation, under every support column is a shaft of concrete varying between 30- to 60-in. in diameter, drilled anywhere from 20- to 40-ft below the surface

"We worked with the existing casino aesthetic to make it look like one building," Rosberg says. "We used the same colors as ones existing, and added a few more." The dominant colors are buff and darker brown.

The two rectangular, 200-ft long wings of the L-shaped, 300,000-sq-ft hotel complex meet to form a 50-ft square atrium at their nexus that rises the full height of the seven-story building.

A stylized feather made of painted aluminum rises the full height of the glass-enclosed space to act as a sun shade, Rosberg says.

An outdoor spa exists "in a shape inspired by Indian pottery," he adds.

Specifically, says Hoel, the outdoor spa is 52-ft across at its base, bellies out to 60-ft-diameter at 8-ft above, the ground, and tapers to 32-ft wide after rising 36-ft. The skeleton of the structure is made up of 18 curved glue-laminated wooden shapes. Light steel and stucco form the skin on outside of pot.

A nearby circular convention center requested by the tribe is a rolled structural steel dome adjacent to the hotel, 60-ft diameter and 42-ft high, Hoel says. I-beams will be fabricated in shops as curved shapes and then sent to site to be assembled.

Hotel amenities will include a 24-hour café, steakhouse, pool, fitness room, and full-service spa, including single and double massage rooms. More than 850 additional parking spaces will be added. Completion is slated for 2008.

The collection of unusual shapes, along with the solidity of the hotel proper and the many services to be offered inside, means "This is going to be a spectacular hotel," Zamora says.

Key Players

Owner:
Pueblo of Isleta

Architect:
Cuningham Group

General Contractor:
Hunt/Bradbury Stamm joint venture

Project Manager:
3D/I

Structural Engineer:
Van Sickle, Allen & Associates Inc.

Subcontractors:
Miller Bonded; Chaparral Electric; The Noel Co.;
Polusen Construction; Romero Excavating

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