Heat, Humidity No Problem for Luxury Hotel Construction
Building a five-star, 500-room flagship hotel for Radisson Blu on a tight schedule was tough enough. But in 2012, Mother Nature also gave Minneapolis-based Mortenson Construction its hottest-on-record summer to add to the challenge of tight temperature and humidity specifications regarding the installation of cabinetry and millwork.
For decades, Radisson Blu has been well known as a luxury hotel brand in Europe and Asia. To bring the brand to the U.S. in a big way, Radisson located its flagship property at the Mall of America in Minneapolis, the largest retail mall in the country. Construction was witnessed by thousands of prospective customers every day, providing Mortenson with a constant aesthetic challenge: minimize the messy reality of construction, and don’t damage the finished exterior of this high-fashion, luxury building.
Neil Cooper, project superintendent for Mortenson, faced the further problem of keeping the interior of the high-rise tower both dry and cool during millwork installation.