Hotel renovation cost: the factors that move the budget

The first walk on a hotel renovation is not through the drawings. It is down the guest corridors with the general manager, counting how many rooms the property can stand to have offline at once without hurting the month. That number, more than the square footage, tells us what the renovation is going to cost, because it decides how long the work takes and how many times crews have to mobilize.

The PIP writes the scope before anyone prices it

Most hotel renovations start with a property improvement plan from the brand. It lists what the flag expects the property to replace or add: soft goods, casegoods, bathroom rebuilds, corridor finishes, lobby and public space, sometimes exterior and systems work. The distance between the property today and that list is the scope. We price the list, not a rule of thumb, and we walk every room type before we do, because the plan on paper rarely matches what is behind the vanity or above the ceiling in a building that has been open for fifteen years.

Approved products, not the cheapest product

Brand standards narrow the choices. Carpet, lighting, tile, casegoods and even the shower door often have to come from an approved program or match a spec sheet closely enough to pass the brand inspection at the end. That takes a lot of value engineering off the table. Where it helps is in predictability: once the spec is fixed, the number is mostly labor, logistics and lead time, and we can hold it. Our own tile, millwork, drywall and paint crews handle the guestroom work, which matters when the same finish has to be repeated a hundred times without a hallway of mismatched grout.

FF&E is a schedule line, not just a budget line

Furniture, fixtures and equipment usually sit in a separate budget from construction, and owners often order it through a purchasing agent. The trap is that the furniture arrives on its own calendar. Custom headboards and casegoods can take months. If the floors are done and the trucks are not here, those rooms are still not selling. We receive, stage and install FF&E with our own crews, and we build the delivery dates into the same schedule as the construction, so the last piece of furniture and the last punch item land in the same week.

Keeping rooms selling while the floors turn

Almost no owner closes a hotel to renovate it. The work runs by floor or by wing, with rooms handed back to the front desk in blocks. That protects revenue, but it changes the cost. Crews work quieter hours, material rides the service elevator, and every block gets its own cleanup and inspection before guests return. A phased job takes longer than the same scope on an empty building, and the extra weeks show up in general conditions. The principal running the job sets that phasing plan with the GM before we start and adjusts it week to week around group bookings and occupancy.

A planning range, and why it is only a range

Owners ask for a per-key number. As a planning range, a soft-goods refresh sits at the low end, a full guestroom renovation with bathrooms sits several times higher, and public space and exterior work stack on top of that. Any figure like that is a planning range only. It moves with the brand, the age of the building, the room count, the FF&E package and the year the work is bid. The way to get a real number is to hand us the PIP and let us walk the property.

We put a principal of the company on the job, and the target is the date the last block of rooms goes back into inventory. Share the PIP and your drawings with us and we will come back with a phased schedule and a number built for your property.