Silver Hard Hat Award

Outstanding Engineering Design Project

The Limelight Lodge and Residences were built concurrently on adjacent sites in downtown Aspen. The project was a redevelopment of the venerable Limelite Lodge, a long-time Aspen hotel, by the existing family ownership.

The two projects are three to four stories above grade with one parking level below. Because of the difficult climate for elevated concrete in Aspen, the general contractor, R.A. Nelson of Avon, selected steel as the material of choice for schedule and cost benefits. This decision was made despite the relatively low floor and floor heights, 10 ft in the case of the lodge, which required a dramatically heightened level of mechanical/structural coordination, since the two systems occupied the same place.

R.A. Nelson selected KL&A Inc., the structural engineer-of-record, to also be the at-risk structural steel subcontractor for the project. The use of steel allowed the contractor a scheduling advantage by starting all the steel columns at the basement floor level. Small construction columns were used at the lowest level, which allowed steel erection and concrete foundation wall construction to take place at the same time.

Another unique feature of the project was the use of premanufactured stair and elevator cores, built by Cortek. The steel stay-in-place forms were manufactured offsite and stacked up two per floor. Stairs were ready in the forms so stair access to upper levels was achieved on the first day after installation. This cut stair and elevator-core construction in half, at no added cost to the project.

Limelight Lodge and Residences
Aspen

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