The first pre-fabricated green suites in North America were added to Cheeca Lodge in the Florida Keys city of Islamorada last week. The 62 suites are part of the 212 total rooms that will be available on the property when it reopens on December 15th.
To help reduce carbon emissions and save on construction costs, the rooms were built about 150 miles from Islamorada and brought in by truck. These Premier Oceanfront and Island View suites will be part of the lodge’s four-story Main Lodge, which will also be a prefabricated green building.
The 27-acre Cheeca Lodge & Spa has been around for 63 years, but when a fire damaged part of it last New Year’s Eve, portions had to be replaced. The hotel leadership decided to turn their bad luck into something positive, and found that going modular would not only improve the sustainability of the suites and construction process, but would also speed up the building process.
"We have been able to put up a green, concrete modular guest room wing in an unheard of 90 days, from pilings to topping off, and with a quality superior to that of conventional construction," says Jerry Johnson, owner of the Cheeca Lodge, in a statement.
According to Johnson, while it would have regularly taken 36 months to construct the Main Lodge, from architectural plans to construction, the prefabricated option pulled it off in six months.
The suites, built by Royal Concrete Concepts, include mahogany crown moldings, doors and cabinetry, carpeted floors, and original art.
The use of pre-built units and buildings has been popular in the hospitality industry recently. CitizenM has embraced the concept of Industrial Flexible Demountable for both of its Amsterdam hotels. Travelodge has embraced modular construction for half of the hotels it plans to build in Great Britain.
But critics point out that it often sends construction jobs overseas (Travelodge does its building in China) and undercuts the competition. Jerry Johnson sees only the positive. "Besides the high quality of the product and its green and safety features, this modular construction has allowed us to fast track our entire construction process."
