Over the last year, readers of this blog have seen us track the progress of the APEX Center of New England, an electrifying entertainment, hospitality, retail and office complex in Marlboro, Massachusetts (suburban Boston). Now, one of the project’s centerpieces – a 137-room Hyatt Place hotel built with SurePods pre-fab bathrooms – opens on October 31, 2017. In November, a Fairfield Inn by Marriott at APEX Center, also built with SurePods, will begin serving guests.
New England’s famed inclement weather added construction challenges to the hotels last winter as storms dumped up to two feet of snow in the Boston area. Despite the winter pounding the region endured from December through February, RAVentures and Brian Gurry of American Builder TV fame helped keep the hotels on track thanks to modular bathrooms.
Speaking of his experience building with SurePods last winter, Gurry said, “We have put these in in rain, snow, wind – you name it, it doesn’t matter. Get ‘em off the truck, get ‘em into the building as fast as can be.”
What does SurePods’ speed of installation translate to in project time savings? ‘I’ve been told it pushes a project ahead a month to two months; and, I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it myself,” said Gurry.
In addition to the two hotels, the 475,000 sq. ft. APEX Center features an entertainment complex, six restaurants, retail and an office/medical facility. “We’re developing an exciting, complimentary, synergistic entertainment venue consisting of multiple hotels, up to six restaurants, convenience retail, and 210,000 square feet of indoor entertainment, which to the best of our knowledge doesn’t exist anywhere around the region,” said Robert Walker principal with RAVentures in an interview with the Worcester Telegram.