Why Hospitality Development and Management Company’s hire Aqua Design – Part 1

This most important reason to have a relationship with a talented aquatic consultant is to ensure you get what you want.  This comment should have a deep and multi-faceted meaning to any hospitality management company.  The history of pool construction in this market has been driven by design/build principals for as long as we can remember.

In years past the architect would typically show a rectangle on his site plan with an arrow pointed to the pool and a note describing “pool by others.”   This portion of the project would be negotiated with a GC with the contractor left to go solicit pricing from a pool builder in that geographic area.  Of course, no information would be provided on the plans to tell the pool builder what he was supposed to bid.  The GC would obtain prices; in some cases from several residential pool builders in the area and would usually award the pool to the low bidder. 

What always remained lost in this scenario is the owner’s expectation.  With no program and no detailed construction drawing, many times the owner would end up with a sub-standard project.  Worse in many cases the pool is not even built to a commercial standard of construction adhering to the brand standards of the property, state & local health codes, county & municipal building codes as well as federal ADA guidelines.  The owner realizes well after the project is completed that they ended up with residential grade equipment and residential grade construction.  Subsequently the property owner is often burdened by staggering renovation costs well before they should expect it to show up in their budget.  Stay tuned for Part 2 of Why Hospitality Management Company’s hire Aqua Design tomorrow.