Gaylord Pacific Resort and Convention Center
The luxury Gaylord Chula Vista Resort & Convention Center is the centerpiece of the Chula Vista Bayfront Master Plan, a decade-long joint planning effort by the Port of San Diego, the City of Chula Vista, and a coalition of stakeholders. The project will create a premier meeting, convention, and luxury resort with a 22-story hotel tower showcasing 1,600 hotel rooms, including 89 suites with views of San Diego Bay. Amenities will feature a spa, recreational facilities, a pool with a lazy river, and bike and boat rentals. The convention center is state-of-the-art and will contain flexible indoor and outdoor event space, restaurants and lounges, meeting rooms, an elevated ballroom, and the largest exhibit hall in California.
The construction of the 240-foot hotel tower is cast-in-place concrete. Concrete shear wall cores with coupled walls resist high seismic loads in the San Diego area. While the width of the building is only 70 feet, the length is over 700 feet long. The tower also articulates in plan with several 45-degree turns, posing a significant challenge for a post-tensioned slab design. The designs use a combination of shear wall blades and closure pours to ensure an efficient slab thickness. The Conference Center and Exhibit Hall will be steel structures and utilize Buckling Restraint Brace frames for seismic resistance. These braced frames consist of a steel core wrapped in concrete and then covered by another layer of steel.
UES recently performed the updated geotechnical investigation, the updated Phase 1 Environmental Report, the Environmental Soil Management Plan, and the Hazardous Materials Evaluation of the remaining buildings to be demolished. Our team currently provides all onsite geotechnical, environmental, and materials testing and special inspection services during construction. The project will consist of more than 50,000 cubic yards of grading, surcharged building pads, and 1,700 Auger Cast Pile foundations.
