The hotel rooms at a new dual-branded Marriott Hotel near Los Angeles, which is scheduled to open in 2018, will be framed, drywalled, carpeted, and furnished 840 miles away in Boise.

The structure will be a modular hotel, made of blocks that were created over the course of six months on the factory floor and then trucked to L.A. to be assembled on the site. It’s a mode of construction that is becoming more common as hotel builders look for ways to save time and money.

Modular construction, where buildings are created in efficient, factory-like conditions and then assembled on site, is not new. Inexpensive modular single-family homes have been a staple for many decades in the U.S. and around the world, and modular construction for commercial buildings such as apartments and hotels has been a standard in Europe and China for years.

Modular construction, sometimes using shipping containers, has become enormously popular among tiny home builders and among homeowners looking for ways to cut their carbon footprint.

But it has taken some time for modular to gain acceptance in mainstream areas of U.S. business such as hotel construction. Marriott has led the hotel industry in using modular, and was the first customer when Guerdon entered the hotel construction business about five years ago. Now, projects are being built for the Holiday Inn Express, Hampton Inn and Suites, and Hyatt.

“We are talking to several hotel and apartment developers in Los Angeles who see the value in faster permitting and construction time that will lower interest carry cost and get ealrlier occupancy which produces revenue earlier than a site built project” said Bill Cavanaugh of USModular Inc.

An advantage of modular construction is that work can start in the factory floor while site work is underway elsewhere.

There are also savings in labor costs, especially if a building is going into a remote area with a very small workforce, or into California or other states. And the Modular Building Institute, an organization designed to promote modular construction, says that quality goes up when buildings are put together in the controlled conditions of a factory.

“Structurally, modular buildings are generally stronger than conventional construction because each module is engineered to independently withstand the rigors of transportation and craning onto foundations,” the organization says. It also says materials stored in factories tend to be protected from moisture damage and other elements.

And “manufacturing plants have stringent QA/QC programs with independent inspection and testing protocols that promote superior quality of construction every step of the way.”

Modular construction does have detractors. Modular buildings don’t use as much local labor. And mass-produced modules that are shipped hundreds of miles do not convey the sense of place or harmony with surroundings of a locally designed and built structure. However, most of the hotel chains, along with the national restaurant and retail chains, are built to specifications standardized elsewhere, and are rarely constructed with an eye to indigenous building materials or exteriors.

And modular building supporters note that modular building construction usually has less of an impact on the immediate area than traditional construction does.

Once they are completed, modular buildings look the same as their more traditional counterparts. Indeed, when you walk into a hotel room that is sitting on the lot of a modular factory, it’s hard to tell you’re not in the hotel itself. The corridors are still rough; they will be finished on site, along with electrical, plumbing, and other services. But the rooms are complete, down to closet doors and towel racks.

The Marriott Initiative

Marriott began researching modular construction in 2014 and started using modular in 2015. At a conference this spring in Los Angeles, Marriott displayed a Courtyard by Marriott guest room. The hotel chain announced May 1 that it expects to sign 50 hotel deals this year that use prefabricated guest rooms or bathrooms.

Marriott has opened just one hotel so far under this modular initiative, a 97-room Fairfield Inn & Suites in Folsom, Calif., that uses rooms made in a factory. Four more Marriotts are under construction in Pullman, Wash., Oklahoma City, Louisville, Kentucky and Chapel Hill, N.C.

“Construction is the next frontier for innovation, and modular is leading the way,” said Eric Jacobs, Marriott International’s chief development officer of Select Brands, North America, a mid-level brand for Marriott.

For more information on modular construction in Los Angeles and all of California contact USModular, Inc.

info@usmodularinc.com

888-987-6638

 

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