With a convenient location on the edge of the Front Range, Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center offers a welcome reprieve from the usual. The hotel showcases the state’s alpine charm through every nature-inspired detail of the property. The Gaylord Resort is Colorado’s largest hotel built to date and was the largest hotel project under construction in the US during 2018. It was also the largest project Bomanite Licensee, Colorado Hardscapes installed in 2018 with over 150,000 Square feet of architectural concrete imprint and flatwork placed.
The 1,501-room resort is joined by a 485,000 Square foot convention center and an extensive indoor/outdoor water park on a sprawling 85-acre site. Recreational facilities include a 800-foot lazy river, expansive event lawns, a resort style outdoor pool, 22,000-square-foot indoor pool venue with slides, tennis courts, pool bar, putting course and a basketball court. The outdoor space is planted with native vegetation and includes walking paths.
Colorado Hardscapes’ scope for the architects flooring and hardscape plans included the incredible Grand Lodge atrium, decks for two pools and the lazy river, all hotel and convention center entrances, and the west event center lawn and convention center sidewalks. A variety of Bomanite products and techniques were integrated to create multi-dimensional surfaces for this highly-animated rustic environment. Defining the right combination of materials, finishes, imprints, colors, hardeners and many other variables was no small effort. Three rounds of product samples and pricing were considered in pre-construction before finally arriving at the specified package.
In the Grand Lodge, the Bomacron Small Random Slate imprint pattern created a textured, rock walkway. Careful placement, impression-by-impression, assured a deliberately, on-repetitive, natural-looking result. Conversely, incorporating the Bomacron Running Bond Belgian Block imprint required rigorous placement precision to achieve an intentionally consistent look. Both imprints required extensive layout preplanning, consideration of mix-design constraints related to accessing work areas, and coordination with other trades.
Across the sprawling site, the Bomanite Sandscape Texture Exposed Aggregate System was mixed with three different integral colors to produce a high-profile hardscape surface that feels great under bare feet for the indoor/outdoor pool decks and compliments the natural surroundings for the installed hardscape. Because the dry, loose soil of the Colorado prairie is difficult to grade and doesn’t hold moisture well, the Colorado Hardscape crews took special care to compact and re-compact work areas during site preparation to confidently assure long-lasting work. Crews completed a massive 21,000 hours while working together in three to four different areas around the site at the same time. The biggest challenge of this project was that the vast site and the enormous building required a multitude of trades to be working almost everywhere simultaneously.
Setting it apart from other similarly-sized resorts, Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center was designed to authentically capture a local sense of place. The resort’s interior design and décor is modeled after aspects iconic to Colorado – everything from cascading waterfalls over boulders and local nature artwork to native landscaping and elevators designed to look like old mine shafts. These planned elements carry over into guest rooms, with aspen tree-inspired carpets, lumberjack plaid print pillows and hiking and camping maps in the closets. The Convention Center includes charming Colorado details sprinkled throughout which represent ski tracks, snow drifts and snowflakes. The Bomanite Imprint Systems and Bomanite Exposed Aggregate Sandscape Texture were the perfect Bomanite Decorative Concrete aspects to add cohesion with the interior flooring and exterior hardscapes of this native Coloradan built resort.
Colorado Hardscapes dedication to serving clients, constant communication, and relentless commitment to high-quality set the stage for success on this once in a lifetime project. Colorado Hardscapes was awarded the Bomanite Imprint Systems 2018 Silver Award for their impressive natural looking precise installation at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center.
