Holiday Inn, Hemel Hempstead

Case Study

Client:

Cerberus

Project:

Holiday Inn, Open Lobby Area and Bedroom Refurbishment, Hemel Hempstead

Contract Duration:

18 weeks

the
project

We recently completed the multi-million-pound refurbishment project on Holiday Inn Hemel Hempstead for Cerberus, a client that Murray & Willis have worked for on many projects for the last 15 years.

From start to finish in 18 weeks we refurbished 152 bedrooms, the open lobby area, academy rooms and a restaurant. Comprising of a highly detailed and complex fast track project operating in a live and occupied building across all floor levels. This project represented a considerable delivery challenge requiring us to meet guaranteed programme end dates.

In order to minimise disruption, from the outset we as the principal contractor made the decision to establish internal hoarding to separate us from the hotel staff and guests. As well as this, in order for the hotel to remain operational we organised three phased handovers of the bedrooms, handing over circa fifty bedrooms every six weeks of the project.

Due to the complexity of this project it was paramount that communication was key throughout the duration and managing the phasing was critical. To achieve this successfully, we at the outset made the decision to appoint two full-time contract managers. One to manage the public areas and another to control the bedroom refurbishment. We felt this was a sensible approach as the areas and decision-making process between us, the professional team and the hotel staff worked better. As well as this, weekly site meetings were set up to enable our site team and contract managers to have the ability to adapt to the needs of the project.

We initially completely stripped-out and then fully refurbished all of the bedrooms. The scope of works in this phase included complete redecoration using our own in-house decorators installing ‘Muraspec’ high quality commercial wallpaper, a bespoke ‘Gaskell’ carpet design to the bedrooms and ‘ege’ carpet in the corridors which are compliant with IHG’s brand standard. As well as this, all the bedrooms had a complete re-wire.

The bathrooms throughout the 152 bedrooms received a full refurbishment, which consisted of re-grouting and replacing the showers and taps. In addition to this, all of the old pipework was stripped out and replaced. We replaced all of the toilet cisterns with new, eco-friendly water saving cisterns and then fitted a new hinged Corian cistern access lid. We refurbished all of the baths using a ‘Bath doctor’ and finished them off with fresh new silicon. We also managed alterations to all of the lighting, small power and data to suit the reconfigured bedrooms.

Simultaneously to the bedroom refurbishment Murray & Willis also completely refurbished the open lobby area, academy rooms and the hotel’s restaurant.
To achieve this, we worked with the hotel setting up temporary restaurants, a reception area and temporary lounge areas, whilst still maintaining the use of the remaining conference facilities.

The areas were completed with high quality decoration finishes using our own in-house skilled, time served decorators. Bespoke items of joinery and soft and hard floor finishes were installed. In the reception area, we undertook the installation of a new modern bespoke reception desk and rear back fitting.
Working within this occupied hotel was logistically complex and as such, we also had to plan and programme the complete refurbishment of staff offices, welfare area and all meeting rooms, this was only achieved with daily communication between our staff and the management, working with the hotel to maintain a positive customer experience.

This project was completed on time, within budget and to the high quality our clients demand. Due to this and the excellent work by all Murray & Willis operatives, we are in further negotiations with the client about more work in the future.

Get In Touch

Cannock Office:
Units 4 & 5, Cannock Wood Industrial Estate
Cannock Wood Street, Rawnsley, near Cannock,
Staffordshire, WS12 0PL

Email: [email protected]
Tel: 01543 426811

London Office:
Business Design Centre, Suite 111A,
52 Upper Street, Islington, London, N1 0QH

Email: [email protected]
Tel: 0207 288 6574

Contact Form