The Triangle welcomed its first Aloft Hotel in 2010. Aloft Hotels are designed to appeal to younger, tech-savvy travelers and are located throughout the world. The Chapel Hill inn has 130 rooms and 600 square feet of meeting space along with an outdoor swimming pool. Stewart provided the special inspections and construction materials testing for this six-story, 75,000-square-foot facility.
The hotel consists of load-bearing masonry shear walls with a precast hollow core flooring system and a shallow foundation. Because masonry is the major structural component, continuous on-site inspections were required. In order to accommodate this, inspectors working on other projects in the Chapel Hill area were utilized to inspect the masonry. This practice eliminated the need for a single full-time on-site inspector, resulting in lower costs for the owner while still meeting the requirements of the building code.
