The AC Hotel Chapel Hill Downtown (OTO Development) marks the first time the company has incorporated prefabricated guest rooms into a construction project. It is also the first Marriott-branded project on the East Coast to do so and part of Marriott International’s recent embrace of modular construction with a goal of signing 50 such projects in 2017.

Located at the corner of Rosemary Street and Church Street in downtown Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the AC Hotel project made for a tight, urban job site – a challenging set of circumstances that further encouraged OTO to give the prefab process a go.

“Modular construction helps lessen impact on the surrounding neighborhood,” Mitchell says, noting the job site’s proximity to the Northside residential district. “The noise, construction debris and other disturbances typically generated on a conventional job site were relocated to the manufacturing facility.”

The green roof at the AC Hotel Chapel Hill Downtown was installed to meet the stormwater requirements of the City. It is a built-in-place system consisting of five unique green roof areas. As an alternative to an expensive stormwater catchment system, the Furbish Ecoline system is unique in that it doesn’t have a drainage layer. The mineral wool base acts as a sponge to absorb stormwater providing water for plants growing in the shallow 2.5″ of growth media.

Installed in the summer of 2017, the AC Hotel Chapel Hill Downtown green roof was seeded with wildflowers and plugged with Sedum species as well in the event the seeds didn’t germinate. To the delight of the Project Team, the seeded species have thrived and provide a beautiful vista for neighbors across the street and important pollinator habitat. The plant material is a diverse mix of native perennials, self sowing annuals, and a variety of Sedum species.