This upcoming Saturday represents the finish line for four of my goals this year. The Morgantown Marriott hotel will be issued, I ran the Pittsburgh Half-Marathon, I completed my first semester of graduate studies at FSU, and on the 16th I will take (and pass?!) the LEED Green Associate exam. Then, summer begins. I plan to have no plans (ha ha) but focus on living healthy and speaking more Italian.
The Marriott hotel project began last summer and in February I wrote for our company newsletter about the process:
A brand new five-story hotel is planned to rise across the street from the Morgantown Black Bears baseball stadium in Granville, WV. This Courtyard by Marriott has been a collaboration of a full design-build team. Along with the owners, West Place, LLC and general contractor, Waller Corporation, Mills Group is leading the effort.
The site is unique –at the far end of University Town Centre Drive, and it is positioned above the river with a view toward WVU’s iconic Coliseum. A new interchange from Interstate 79 will lead visitors directly to this location in the near future.
Planning began the summer of 2014. Mills Group was integral in the site positioning and assisted the owners in their future visions for the adjacent sites nearby. The Marriott will be perched at the top of a hill, the eastern side of the site, paralleling the Monongahela River located 360 feet below.
This Courtyard by Marriott will offer many amenities to guests. The building has an indoor pool, a generous public space including a bar, a bistro, a business center, and a theater to lounge comfortably. The guestroom configuration favors a two queen bed mix providing families who will enjoy local baseball the best opportunity to be together while they stay. This hotel will be themed with local interests and incorporate baseball, WVU accessories and images throughout the Interior space. A new interior scheme rolled-out in January and this Morgantown Marriott will be one of the first hotels to offer guests this new vision of the Marriott brand. The distinctive location will offer private outdoor spaces for the guests as an invitation to participate in the fine weather and view. This will be enjoyed beside a fire-pit fire crackling in the background.
In December the Mills Group team took a trip to Marriott headquarters located in DC to meet with our Marriott design representatives. The trip provided hands-on observation of the materials, methods and quality the brand expected of our future hotel.
We celebrated the official ground-breaking just before the January snows. Waller Corporation’s team continues to move toward an early spring 2016 opening date. Mills Group is currently refining all of the details that need to be fastened together when the project links structural, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, site, prefab bathroom pods, fire protection, landscape architecture and more into one Revit model. Construction documents are to be completed in May and construction administration will last through this year. Stay tuned for progress as the building comes out of the ground and begins to play a role in the hilltop scene of University Town Centre Drive.
Rendering study by a past Mills Group employee, Jared.
Key Project Consultants:
MEP & Structural – Allegheny Design
Site/Civil – Cheat Road Engineering
Bathroom Pods – Oldcastle Modular
Passive Architect 