Hardin
Hotels
by
Gary Shepherd
This "gentleman 's" construction company has
built some of the Bay area 's largest, most luxurious hotels.
 |
| Page
McKee, Hardin's highest-ranking executive in Florida,
spends a lot of time making sure the Hardin stamp of
quality is over the high profile hotels his company
builds. |
WHEN
THE BAY AREA'S LARGEST HOTEL, the 717-room Marriott Waterside,
opened in downtown Tampa in February 2000, Page McKee was
an eagle-eyed observer. McKee is regional vice president
and general manager for privately held Hardin Construction
Co. LLC the company that built many of the Bay area's
largest and most prestigious hotels, including the Marriott
Waterside and the Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota. It also is responsible
for the two Hyatt Regency hotels in the Westshore and downtown
districts of Tampa.
McKee
and his Atlanta-based company which also does much commercial,
retail and government construction work had a lot riding
on the new Marriott's success. So did other businesses and
government leaders. The one common criticism Tampa has faced
for many years is that it lacked enough high-quality hotel
rooms within reach of the downtown district to be a strong
candidate for any really big conventions. So, the 27-story
Waterside was designed as the primary hotel for the Tampa
Convention Center. It was to be immediately luxurious and
have the rooms and meeting space to compare with similar
hotels in other big convention cities. The $110 million
hotel is a key to drawing large-scale meetings and, to a
lesser degree, tourists, to spark growth in downtown Tampa.
So,
on that cool February morning in 2000, McKee watched carefully
from his perch three levels above the bustling, open-air
lobby at the Waterside. Indeed, things could have gone wrong.
And, things did go awry: Earlier, the Marriott booked the
rooms for February rather than the planned opening date
in March. That goof forced Hardin into weekend work, 2 a.m.
concrete pours and other extraordinary efforts, McKee says.
But opening day went just fine, and Waterside has succeeded
ever since. It hosted the National Football League during
the 2001 Super Bowl in Tampa, less than a year after opening,
for instance. And, it stands in its glory, a good-looking
hotel built as near the water as you can get without falling
in a testimony to downtown Tampa's future growth.
"The
Marriott Waterside has helped to jump-start the convention
center," says McKee. "And the hotel presents a splendid
image for Tampa and the region. All these folks are from
Kansas City or Chicago or somewhere. And all of them talk
about coming back here."
Hardin
understands the bigger picture, says Stuart Rogel, chief
executive of the seven-county Tampa Bay Partnership economic
development group. "The Marriott Waterside has been critical
to the convention center and to downtown Tampa's revitalization."
Mary
Scott, the hotel's general manager, calls the building "magnificent"
and gives good marks to Hardin. "Their attention to detail
was very good," she says. "As an example, Hardin's people
and I spent a great deal of time looking at the palm trees
in the lobby to see which way they would bend to look best."
The preserved trees, which are topped by silk fronds, are
a signature hotel feature.
Owned
by Host Marriott Corp. and developed by Trammell Crow Co.,
the 637,000-square-foot hotel has ballrooms, swimming pools,
a 5,000-square-foot spa, retail shops and three restaurants.
During
the 23-month project, Hardin succeeded in "dealing with
challenging and shifting issues on a daily basis," says
Robert Abberger, managing director of Trammell Crow's Florida
development services. "There was no room for delivery delay."
At The
Ritz
In Sarasota, Hardin built the 18-story, $130 million Ritz-Carlton
Hotel and Residences. "I think the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota
was the only hotel delivered on time and on budget in the
last two years," says Simon Cooper, president and CEO of
Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co.
On the
same site where circus owner John Ringling hoped to build
a Ritz-Carl-ton 75 years earlier (the Great Depression ended
Ringling's dream), the project rippled through the Sarasota
economy during construction. Some 25 subcontractors and
about 700 employees built the 266-room hotel in 2000-2001.
The Ritz, one of only about 40 such hotels, was a complex
project, including luxury condos priced at up to $5 million
that sold out after only a few weeks on the market. With
18,000 square feet of meeting space, the Ritz will also
draw highend confabs and corporate retreats to South Tampa
Bay.
Besides
high-profile hotels, Hardin has built some of the best-known
commercial and retail projects in the Bay area, and also
does a lot of work for government entities including the
Hillsborough County School System.
Staying
Competitive
Why is Hardin so successful? McKee terms Hardin "a gentleman's
construction company. By that, I mean that our ethics, our
integrity, our dedication to customer satisfaction are each
important elements." Another key is that Hardin long ago
escaped the bid-win-and-build regimen that was standard
among contractors for decades.
Hardin,
says McKee, began incorporating a team approach of getting
the owner, architects, Hardin and other key shareholders
together early in the process. That way, he says, "we eliminate
big surprises at the end of the day." By working early on
budgeting, materials selection and every aspect of the project,
costs are kept down and the process works more smoothly.
For instance, an initially more expensive component may
be more cost effective in the long run for the building
owner.
McKee
's Leadership McKee has been with Hardin for two decades.
At age 20, he was youngest-ever graduate of Auburn University's
Building Sciences program.
McKee
made money in college by raising bulldogs, including one
he sold to Mississippi State University as MSU's mascot.
He joined Hardin in Atlanta in 1983 and was promoted to
Tampa in 1996: "It took longer to fight Atlanta's traffic
as I was leaving than it did to in love with Tampa." McKee,
47 divorced, lives in South Tampa.
As for
the future, McKee is realistic, and optimistic, too. "The
office space pipeline is slow right now," he says, to the
slowed economy and an abundance of existing space. But Hardin
refocused on public projects and health care projects, both
of which offer steady opportunity in Florida.
Besides,
he says, there should always be corporate build-to-suit
projects such as the Nielsen Media work. And hotel business
will certainly bloom again, says McKee. "I think we could
another 1,000 rooms in Tampa." And you can bet Hardin will
be a candidate to build a fair share of those.
