Is it time for a challenging distraction in the water cooler yet? I’ve got one for y’all.
This is all in the preliminary design stages yet, and I may not even pull it off. But if I do, my target date for breaking ground is the second quarter, 2007. Doors open for business first quarter 08.
My not so silent, silent partner, live in girlfriend and I are going to build a small four star restaurant / bar / hotel. I’m trying to secure the ONLY chunk of land that I’ll build the facility on in this community. If I can’t get it, we’ll build it somewhere down in wine country. That being said, any help with this you want to volunteer, may be for naught. I’ve drafted the facility on D size paper and started layering it out on CAD, but Turbo cad pro vrs 11 and I have had a serious disagreement. TC is taking a timeout for bad behavior. When we make up and I transfer the design over, I’ll post pictures, but that may be a few months…..
I’m now putting the final touches to the business plan, which entails squeezing facility construction, budget line items. One I could use some help with is electronics (comm/audio/video/security/data interface & network). I’ve penciled in 250K for this line item.
The general layout (for you visionaries), is a modified V. Local code dictates a building height restriction of 35 feet to the peak of the roof, so the building will be two story. The entrance and lobby is at the apex of the V. To the right (as you enter the lobby) is the hotel (40 rooms). The left is the bar and restaurant (roughly 40 X 80). The bar is on the first floor and the restaurant is on the second floor above the bar. The building is a combination of timber frame construction with foam panels for the lobby/bar/restaurant and the hotel is stand alone foam panel construction.
The bar is going to be unique. It is a multilevel, combination English pub and sports bar layout with a band / dance floor area and a big assed U shaped open bar that can serve all three areas. I’m going to segregate the areas by building them in a split level arrangement so they will still be open to each other, but deferent floor heights of three feet with a common ceiling height to each level. Total floor area is about 3200 square feet including the bar/serving area. Floor areas for the bar are hard to describe as they intermingle.
The sports bar area will be about 24 X 48. Half of this area will have pool tables, dart boards and seating. The other half will have tables and a couple 60” wall mounted flat screen TV’s for folks to watch games (with surround sound).
The pub area is for folks to get away from the noise of pool games and the band for semi-casual conversations. It will be roughly 40 X 32. Seating will be high backed booth style with a few gas fire places set into partition walls. I got this idea while frequenting some of the pubs in England last year.
The band/dance area will have a raised stage for the band and DJ / karaoke above the dance floor and seating with 42” high patrician walls to provide some segregation between seating. It is roughly 24 X 32. There will be a few flat screens in this area too.
I was planning to simply run conduit to several areas throughout the sports and pub areas for pulling speaker wire and hang some book shelf speakers. But when the Axiom W series came out, I instantly liked the idea of using them and hiding some EP600’s instead. For the dance area, I’m contemplating suspending four or six M80’s and again hiding a couple EP600’s out of harms way. How I’m going to do that……well, I’m not real sure yet.
The restaurant level will have the kitchen in the center, and tables around the perimeter overlooking the sound and boat harbor with a rap around deck for summer seating. I was going to run ceiling speakers, but again, like the W series / hidden sub woofer idea.
Some of the rooms will be suites with jetted tubs. For these rooms, I also want audio with user interface tied into the main system so guests can pick some tunes while lounging in the tubs.
I’m not real sure how I’m going to tie all this together with electronics. Haven’t had the time to do any real research yet for what is available. What I envision, is to have a main hub situated in a room where security, comm., video (for the TV’s) and audio can interface with remote control pads in selected areas of the facility. I haven’t’ decided if I’m going to have card swipes for debt / CC’s in the bar area or not. I may need some means to pay for all this. Hotel guests could swipe their room cards and pay nothing. Other’s would have to pay just like using a jukebox.
For security, I’m not going to mess with this too much. I figured I’d just give the plans to a consultant. I can save enough on insurance with a BAT security system to have a pro do the design. Bars nowadays need lots and lots of cameras for when hooligans get out of control and need some ‘assistance’ leaving the building. I don’t want bouncers packing video cameras when they need to handle a situation.
Have fun with this one!! Any input at this point in the game would be valuable to me.
