As the local joke goes, Washington state’s bird is the American goldfinch, but Seattle’s “bird” is the crane. With 58 construction cranes at work this summer, Seattle has 60% more cranes than any other U.S. city and is the American crane capital two years running, reports the Seattle Times.
A real estate boom driven by Amazon is fueling the construction frenzy. As a result, the severe shortage of skilled construction labor felt throughout the country is particularly acute in Washington’s largest city.
To help meet an aggressive schedule despite limited labor, while delivering exceptional guest rooms for a new downtown Embassy Suites by Hilton, Seattle-based developer American Life chose prefabricated bathroom units. Last summer American Life installed SurePods in the 282-room, 23-story hotel. “We only see advantages to using SurePods, especially given Seattle’s tight construction labor market,” said Greg Steinhauer, president of American Life.
In contrast to traditional bathroom construction methods, SurePods consolidate more than 10 construction trades – including electrical, plumbing and finishing work – into one prefabricated product. The modular bathroom units are easy to lift, place and connect, which helps save project developers time and money while improving bathroom quality for hotel owners and guests.
Crews are putting the finishing touches on the Embassy Suites by Hilton, which is scheduled to open in January.
For more details on this project, and Greg Steinhauer’s choice to use bathroom pods, see a feature article in the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.