(CS2.4) 3rd Time's the Charm: Creative Systems Integration for Adaptive Reuse in Charm City

The Latrobe Building was largely unoccupied when purchased by a developer in 2017 for conversion to a boutique hotel. The irregularity of its structural grid and closely spaced concrete floor joists in particular created difficult and unpredictable conditions that required creative solutions for routing new pipes, ducts and conduit necessary for transforming the 110 year old building into a 116-key hotel.

The building opened in 1911 as a well-appointment apartment house for bachelors in Baltimore, Maryland’s fashionable Mount Vernon neighborhood. The thinking at the time was that bachelors did not need kitchens, so the units did not include any. Like many of its contemporaries, the Latrobe was heated with steam radiators, and did not include today’s standard building systems such as cooling, mechanical ventilation, fire sprinklers, etc. The 9-story, 57,500 square foot building was constructed with a concrete frame on an offset grid, load-bearing exterior brick walls and a one-way concrete joist floor system with clay tile infill.

The project involved a full replacement of all building systems to meet or exceed current codes, reduce energy use and provide maximum comfort. The building, originally designed with 44 bachelor apartments, was not suited to support the needs of 100+ short-term occupants in guest rooms with individual bathrooms. The key challenge was designing a way to insert new building systems while working around and with the existing structural frames and archaic floor system.

This adaptive reuse project had to maintain the exterior appearance and character of the building to meet historic preservation requirements. No new mechanical openings or equipment could be visible from the main facades. All fresh air and exhaust needed to be brought in from non-historically significant portions of the building.

The solution was to route all systems vertically through the building to the rooftop air handlers. Inserting new duct and plumbing risers became a challenge because the concrete joist floor system did not align vertically and could not be cut without headering off the new opening. To prevent multiple and ongoing change orders as a result of the limiting structure and low floor-to-floor heights, over-size shafts were designed for each guest room/bath unit to accommodate mechanical and plumbing lines that could be field adjusted around the existing structure without compromising the general size and layout of the adjacent guest baths. The vastly increased HVAC and plumbing system was creatively routed through the building to provide individual controls to every guest room.

The completed project was awarded historic tax credits for its sensitive building preservation strategy and has been given new life as the Hotel Ulysses, preserving a slide of the city’s history while fulfilling modern needs and drawing travelers to its accommodations and its ground floor restaurant and bars.