DESIGN BLEND

Once the legal disputes were put to rest and the ownership structure and funding were in place, the challenge became Neal and Pope Bullock’s, two principals from Cooper Carry. The original plan was to reuse the entire Watt & Shand building, but historic tax credits weren’t available, making salvage efforts too costly. Losing the facade was out of the question, though. “The whole reason we bought the building was to preserve it,” Cooley says. “We didn’t know what we were stepping into when we bought it, but if we didn’t care whether the facade existed, there was no reason for locals to get involved if demolition wasn’t an issue.”

Sixty-seven feet tall and more than 100 years old at its original point, the facade stretches 440 feet and as high as 78 feet. Steel trusses placed vertically and I-beams through the windows sandwiched the facade to stabilize it. Once secure—and it was measured daily with lasers to make sure it didn’t move—the rest of the building was demolished, leaving just the huge wall standing by itself. Construction began and those poured-in-place concrete columns eventually replaced the trusses.

Neal and Bullock worked with the community at town meetings to understand its vision of the project. The duo has specialized in similar public-private projects and understood the importance of local involvement. “We wrote down everything they had to say,” Neal says. “We worked three months before we drew the first line trying to understand the site, the people and the city.”

The facade wasn’t the only historic component of the project. The 205-year old Montgomery House was built around and into the Watt & Shand as it expanded during the early 20th century, creating a unique challenge for the architects. The brick building is now an odd, but striking feature in the shared lobby with a stand-alone entrance from the outside street and a door at the back of the historic home inside the lobby area. There are two other historic homes on the far corners of the convention center; one is famed 19th-century legislator Thaddeus Stevens’ and the other is that of his housekeeper and confidante, Lydia Hamilton Smith. A multi-level museum is being created, which features a cistern used as part of the Underground Railroad.

The 18-story hotel doesn’t appear to have sprouted up in the middle of the surprisingly urban looking city. It’s a notch shorter than the tallest building in town and the new construction was recessed away from the street. Pedestrians only see the four-story Watt & Shand facade and not the huge tower behind it. “It’s a more modern expression of architecture,” Bullock says, “so it’s set off, so that sense of character from the street is unchanged.”

The convention center features a 46,000-square-foot exhibition hall and four floors of meeting space. The guestrooms are what you’d find at most typical Marriott convention center locations. The exposed concrete columns punctuate the interior of the building, a contrast to the elegant finishes of the modern lobby. “The symbolism and functionality of those for me is one of the most beautiful things about this project,” Neal says. “The owners didn’t want us to rebuild history. Our intention was to build more contemporary in the guestrooms and public spaces and let history hold its own.”

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

The Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square and Lancaster County Convention Center opened on June 19 and the goal now is filling the massive facility. Lancaster County is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the state with its vast history, huge Amish population and attractions and scenic countryside. The city is 75 miles west of Philadelphia and 75 miles north of Baltimore.

With a first-class convention facility, Lancaster is on the meetings map. “It always came down to the fact we didn’t have the size of meeting space to compete,” says Chris Barrett, CEO of the Lancaster Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau. “Now we can easily compete and the quality gives us a leg up.”

Although the timing of the opening hasn’t been ideal, Josh Nowak, the director of sales and marketing, has seen plenty of bright spots already. “We need to pinch ourselves a little with the events we’ve had in the first three months,” he says. “Not only do we have all this history in this building, but now we have really engaged stakeholders to make sure our city and county are ready to welcome conventioneers.” That was evident two days after the opening, when the owners held an open house and 5,000 turned out to see the finished product. “I like to say you can tell a successful project by how many people stand up and take credit for it,” Neal says. “All the people in this town can take credit for this.”