Multi Use High Rise Adds to City Skyline

Stitched leather wallpaper, Italian linens and limestone floors are some of the details guests are now enjoying at the new St. Regis Hotel, San Francisco’s latest luxurious high-rise. The 41-story concrete post-tension cable building, owned by Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, is located across from Yerba Buena Gardens and next door to the SF Museum of Modern Art, and ranks among the tallest buildings in the city.

In addition to providing a haven for discriminating guests, floors 22 through 40 add 102 condominium units to the city. More than just expansive views, the St. Regis building residences offer amenities like the exclusive St. Regis spa, an indoor pool, and 3,700 square-foot fitness facility. Two restaurants, a cocktail lounge and the Museum of African Diaspora are also located in the building.

CMI Project Manager John Seymour says the St. Regis building required major flexibility in both the design and installation phases. A long delay at the onset of construction, after the tragic events of September 2001, brought about some needed changes by the time construction resumed three years later. The owners hired a new designer to update the interiors, and pushed the project to fast track.

To help facilitate the revamped design, owners moved CMI from a design/assist role into a design/build relationship. “We took an innovative approach to design solutions,” explains John. CMI’s experience also played a role in the crew’s ability to streamline the original plan, and successfully cut nearly 1.5 million from project costs.

One of CMI’s design changes proved invaluable for the guests and residents of St. Regis. The original plan called for a factory built 150 ton VAV air handler located adjacent to meeting rooms on the fourth floor. This location created some difficult acoustic problems for both the meeting rooms next door as well as the guest rooms one floor above. There was also a ceiling height problem and costly ductwork planned to channel air to the main shaft located 80 feet away.

Always on the lookout for a better solution, CMI suggested using built-up air handlers and squeezing the return air fans, filters and coil underneath the swimming pool on the fifth floor. Space was tight, sometimes down to less than 60 inches of clearance, but CMI’s custom built-up system provided the flexibility needed to fit the mechanicals into place and saved St. Regis owners nearly $150,000.

Money wasn’t the only thing saved by CMI’s ingenuity. When owners discovered that the first floor restaurant’s “seasonal new American” cuisine included an extensive sashimi and sake bar, but no breakfast—more changes needed to be made. The newly opened space on the fourth floor was quickly filled with restroom facilities needed to accommodate a new breakfast restaurant.

 “Change goes with the territory,” Marty Byrne, CMI piping foreman, states. Both Marty and Tom Freyslaben, CMI’s sheet metal foreman, agree that change is just part of the job, especially when constructing a building of this size, but redesigning the interior during fast-track construction demanded an extra effort from the many subcontractors on the job.

Since the building itself offered zero flexibility, precise positioning was imperative, and coordination was no small task. “These concrete buildings give us a unique set of circumstances to work with,” Marty explains. “When you’ve got this amount of ductwork in a concrete building, a straight line is rarely the answer.” Marty kept scheduling conflicts to a minimum by personally tracking down the other tradesmen and communicating frequently.

“Marty and Tom both did an excellent job of making sure we kept on top of things, no matter how difficult the circumstances, the whole way through,” John explains.

“We have a great group of guys,” Marty adds. “Without them this job would not be done.”

CMI was proud to work alongside Webcor Builders to complete this monumental project.