CREW Blue Ribbon Awards Program Book 2024

Bristol Event Center / Home2 Suites Bristol, CT

The new, ground-up, two-story Bristol Event Center ( BEC ) was designed together, as one project, with the new, ground-up, four-story, 90-room, Home2 Suites ( H2 ) hotel . The overall $80M development, self-funded by a single owner, consists of 188,385 square feet of new hospitality/event/conference/meeting space. The goal of the architecture was to express a modern, elegant, bold building with clean sharp lines, allowing for maximum natural light, and a variety of spatial volume for an enhanced client experience. The BEC includes a 9,400 SF grand ball room with 30-foot ceilings and seating over 500 people; an 8,450 SF pre-function space with two separate beverage bars; a 6,400 SF commercial kitchen; a 2,400 SF conference room, sales offices, two bridal suites; additional storage and support space, and an 11,600 SF outdoor event space. To satisfy the overall parking requirements, a continuous 65,850 square foot, one-story subterranean parking garage was designed directly under the facility. Throughout the design development phase, the BEC evolved many times, growing from a single event room, to what is now the completed 57,715 SF, two-story state-of-the-art facility. It was extremely challenging to design the structural framing layout, specifically to align the columns from the BEC and H2 down into the parking level – especially given the hotel room and event space layouts as related to the parking spaces and drive aisles below. A few other challenges were, one, locating the loading area so it was essentially hidden from view, on a campus that has public exposure on all sides; and two, developing a creative solution to deal with a high water table, especially with a subterranean parking garage. All the materials and systems were selected with sustainability as the priority. This new project will positively impact the community with job creation and by bringing thousands of people to Bristol annually – which helps drive the local economy. The success of this project is a testament to the focus and dedication of the entire design and construction team: Amara Associates – architecture and structural engineering; BL Companies – survey/civil engineering/landscape architecture; CES – MEP engineering, New Avenue Design Studio – interior design, ACG North America – construction management.

Owner : Bristol Hotel, LLC

Project Size : 188,385 SF

Project Team: Amara Associates, BL Companies, CES, New Avenue Design Studio, ACG North America

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