Seventy-five rooms on three stories is a small building, and it still carries a full set of life-safety systems. A 75-room, three-story, 45,635 square foot Holiday Inn Express was proposed at 11256 Business Park Circle in Firestone, northeast of the I-25 and Highway 119 interchange, on land that sold for $990,000 in August 2019. That is the scale of the select-service and extended-stay hotels we plan: repeatable room blocks, a compact public core, and a site that sits beside an interchange or a business park instead of a resort.
Hotels near industrial districts serve a specific guest: the visiting engineer, the equipment installer, the auditor and the crew on a shutdown. Owners choose the site for access and parking, and they choose the building type to keep the construction cost per key in check. Repeatable structure, tight acoustic and fire separations, and schedule discipline carry straight over from industrial work to hospitality. The same crews that pour a tilt-wall slab pour the hotel's foundation, and the same estimators price the site package.
Brand requirements shape the project from the first day. Prototype drawings, property improvement standards and furniture schedules come from the franchisor, and the contractor's job is to build the prototype faithfully, adapt it to local code and deliver it on the opening date.
Fire separation, sprinklers and local amendments
A hotel is a residential occupancy for code purposes, and the major cost items follow from that. Guest rooms need rated demising walls and floor assemblies, an automatic sprinkler system, a fire alarm with notification devices in every room, and corridors and stairs sized for egress. Acoustic separation between rooms is a design requirement in most brand standards and a frequent source of rework, so we inspect wall and floor assemblies against the drawings before they are closed in.
Local amendments and fire district requirements affect cost. In mountain jurisdictions the list is longer: Eagle County's Building Resolution, amended January 21, 2025, adopts the 2021 International Building Code with Appendices C, E, I and J, plus the 2021 IRC, with fire codes amended and adopted by Vail Fire and Emergency Services and other fire districts. It amends IBC 1809.5 to require footings subject to frost to be at least 48 inches deep. We read the amendments before pricing, not after.
Interchange, airport and campus demand
Interstate access defines the hotel market. At the northwest corner of the I-25 and Plum Creek Parkway interchange in Castle Rock, Miller's Landing is a $300 million, 65-acre mixed-use project next to Philip S. Miller Park, planned in four phases over seven to 10 years with a corporate campus, office, retail and a hotel (ColoradoBiz, October 26, 2017). A hotel in that setting is part of a larger program, and its schedule depends on the infrastructure and phasing around it.
Airport demand sits at another scale. Denver International Airport set a passenger record of 82,427,962 in 2025, and its Operation 2045 plan proposes four new concourses with about 100 more gates by 2045. Hotels near the airport area serve crews, air freight staff and travelers, and they sit beside the freight and distribution users we discuss under logistics and distribution.
Structure, envelope and the site package
Select-service hotels are commonly wood-frame or light-gauge steel over a concrete podium or slab on grade, with stucco, panel or masonry veneer and a membrane roof. We choose the system with the owner on cost, schedule and the construction type that the code permits for the height and area. The cast-in-place work is ours: foundations, slab, elevator pit, pool structure and equipment pads for rooftop and ground-mounted mechanical.
The site package is larger than people expect. Parking counts for hotels run high, a porte-cochere or drop-off needs a clear fire route, and the hotel needs its own domestic and fire water and hydrant systems sized for the sprinkler demand. For owners who want one point of responsibility for design and construction, we run the work as design and build delivery against the franchisor's prototype.
One schedule from permit to key handover
Hotels run on opening dates tied to franchise agreements, financing and seasonal demand. We build the schedule backward from the opening date and list the dependencies: franchise plan approval, permit, long-lead items like elevators and PTAC units, owner-supplied FF&E, and the final inspections and certificate of occupancy. Each has an owner and a date, and each is reviewed weekly.
Room count lets us take a floor at a time. We work a repeating sequence through the room blocks (framing, rough-in, inspection, board, finish), using the repetition to reduce errors and to verify that the first room is the standard for all others. A mock-up room is built early and approved by the owner and brand before the others are finished. Turnover includes a punch process by floor, with a final walk-through against the brand's standards.
From interchange sites to mountain towns
Most hotel sites we plan sit on the Front Range, near an interstate, an airport or a business park. Mountain sites are different: Eagle County wildfire regulations apply to all new construction in unincorporated areas, assign each project a low, moderate, high or extreme hazard rating, and require defensible space and ignition resistant construction in moderate, high and extreme zones. Material choices, roof coverings, vent screening and site clearing follow from the rating.
We also look at how a project pairs with other uses. Where a hotel is part of a larger development, the multifamily and mixed-use and office building pages describe how those uses share a site and a utility system.
Send the prototype and the parcel
Share the franchisor's prototype, the site and the opening date. We will return a schedule with the permit, long-lead and inspection dates set against it.
Common Questions
How do you control acoustic separation between guest rooms?
We follow the wall and floor assemblies in the drawings, seal every penetration and verify the assembly before it is closed in. Back-to-back outlets, ducts and plumbing chases are the usual leaks, so we inspect those specifically. If the brand requires testing, we schedule it on a finished room early in the project, while corrections are still inexpensive.
What is a realistic construction duration for a 75-room select-service hotel?
The structure and envelope on a three-story building move quickly once the foundation is complete, and the finish phase is repeated by floor. Site work, permit timing, elevators and owner-supplied furnishings usually set the real end date. We publish a schedule at preconstruction with each of those gates and update it weekly.
Who is responsible for the furniture, fixtures and equipment?
Usually the owner, through the brand's approved vendors, with the contractor coordinating delivery, storage and installation. We list the FF&E on the schedule with delivery windows, so rooms are ready for it, and we reserve space on site for staging. Delays in FF&E are among the most common reasons hotels open late.
How does wildfire regulation affect a mountain-area hotel?
In Eagle County it begins with a hazard rating for the project, and moderate, high and extreme ratings carry defensible space and ignition-resistant construction requirements. The rating affects roofing, siding, vents and landscaping, and it should be known before design is complete. We ask for the rating from the county as part of preconstruction.
Can the hotel and its parking be phased?
Yes, if utilities and detention are sized for the full build and the first phase can meet parking and fire access requirements on its own. Phasing is common on larger mixed-use projects, and it ties the hotel schedule to the infrastructure schedule.