A Starr Project
by K. Robert Wendel

Contractors are carving out the new $71 million Marriott Starr Pass Resort and Convention Center in the mountains west of downtown Tucson.

The upscale resort will have 545 rooms, ballroom facilities, an and a large underground parking garage and a championship golf course.

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Work began in February 2003 with general contractor The Weitz Cos. of Phoenix turning dirt on the hillside-building pad. Contractors must complete the 575,000-sq.-ft. design-build project by January.

Besides the 27-hole golf course, there will be a spa, five pools and restaurants. The convention center will feature a grand ballroom with two 40,000-sq.-ft. indoor meeting spaces and a 20,000-sq.-ft. outdoor patio.

Architects are aiming for an authentic Southwest design that takes cues from historic and traditional homes and businesses in Tucson. Architects from San Francisco-based Hornberger + Worstell performed extensive research in southern Arizona to establish an architectural vocabulary for the upscale resort.

"The client was very specific in the design direction," said Christian Low, Hornberger + Worstell project director. "They wanted to make sure that we were clear on the distinction between the generic desert Southwest and architecture that is specific to Tucson."

The hotel will feature thick sills that set the windows back into the building - as in an old adobe structure - and provide shade while breaking up the building's mass.
Brightly colored decorative wood shutters, small shade structures on windows and sparing use of flat roof tiles create a variety of accents. The project will be covered in a three-coat stucco system integrally colored to match the surrounding scenery.

Typical hotel rooms are 425- sq.- ft. with granite countertops, stone tiles, smooth trowel walls, radius corners and other high-end finishes. In the lobby, designers created a stone feature wall to give visitors the impression the new resort sprung up around what was left of an old homestead. Latillas and vigas are also used to provide a Southwestern accent. Dry stack stone is used in both the architecture and landscaping.

"We are trying to be authentic to the archetypes that have been done over the years," Low said. "Some of the stuff we have seen is a cartoon of the desert southwest. We are trying to be authentic."

Complications on the 38-acre site were ironed out in design, although the fate of much of the over excavation is yet to be decided. The soils featured hard rock and caliche typical to the Sonoran Desert.

"We are processing the excavation material for backfill and slab base and to use on the golf course," said Fred Pech, Weitz Cos. project superintendent. "If we can't make something of it, we will have to haul it off."

Rather than breach the boundaries of two EPA 404 washes, designers created a pedestrian bridge linking the hotel to the convention center and parking garage.
Another 404 wash at the property entrance was spanned with a vehicle bridge. The 404 washes are natural water features that are protected by the EPA.

"There is a jurisdictional zone that has a certain width that you can't encroach," said Bill Noland, a project manager with Gilbert, Ariz., -based Hunter Contracting, which built the vehicle bridge. "You can't take anything out of the wash or put it back in. To avoid a 404 permit, we just spanned the whole wash with an architectural structure."

The project features a variety of building systems. The seven-level, six-story hotel tower is constructed from cast-in-place concrete, providing higher floor-to-ceiling heights. At the convention center, the need for long spans led designers to use structural steel framing.

The underground, two-level parking garage is all precast concrete. Builders used more than 35,000 cu. yds. of concrete.

"Concrete made the most sense, because post-tensioning the hotel floors made the most sense," said structural engineer Steve Slonoker of Scottsdale-based Paul-Koehler Consulting Structural Engineers, Inc. "In the ballrooms, steel was the only option because of the clear spans, and precast concrete made the most sense for the spans in the parking garage."

Tucson's Hoffman Steel Inc. erected the steel-framed convention center, with T-Pac of Tucson providing and placing the pre cast concrete for the two-level parking garage.
Hardrock Concrete Placement of Phoenix poured the cast-in-place hotel project.

The post-tensioned floors created a complicated layout for both electricians and mechanical contractors. Phoenix-based Wilson Electric installed the electrical service.

"The floors are post-tensioned and with a multi-story building, it makes for a difficult layout," said J. Scott Candrian of Tucson's Sun Mechanical Contracting. "On the ground floor, you might have a kitchen and the next floor a meeting space and next floor above that are rooms, so it makes coordination and layout pretty important."

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