The first-ever Cambria Suites hotel has opened in Boise, ID. What’s noteworthy about this project from a metal construction standpoint is that it utilizes approximately 12,000 sq. ft. of Citadel Architectural Products’ Envelope 2000® metal composite material panels on its exterior. Cambria Suites is a brand of Choice Hotels International, which franchises more than 5,300 hotels throughout the United States. The look created for the Boise hotel is being repeated on approximately 50 other Cambria Suites hotels now in various stages of development throughout the country.
The Citadel panels selected for the project were finished in Clear Anodized and attached using Citadel’s progressive Reveal (RV) System. The RV System offers superior flatness and durability and is field assembled for greater value.
Installation of the Citadel system was done by Hobson Fabricating Inc. of Boise. “I love it,” said J.P. Riley, the company’s project manager and superintendent of the Citidel product. “It’s easy. It’s quick. There’s no shop drawing lead time like with other ACM products. I just fabricate everything on-site. It makes the installation process very easy and efficient. I can do whatever needs to be done in as little time as possible. If something gets messed up, we don’t have to deal with calling back to get it redone. It’s 100% us. I love the fact that everything is fabricated on-site.”
Though the metal wall panels are a featured element of the exterior design, masonry and EIFS were used on the exterior as well, and the interface between the various products was critical to the project’s overall success. “There were a lot of inside/outside corners other than 90’s,” said Riley. “And we wrapped numerous small 2” x 2” and 3” x 3” columns long ways. That required a vertical seam and then a horizontal seam about halfway up. That was a little tricky but the system is really simple and straight-forward.”
Minds Eye Architectures of Charlotte, NC, designed the prototype. The Citadel distributor was Pacific Architectural Products, Inc., Clackamas, OR.