Pinnacle of Luxury

Omni Oklahoma City Hotel (Omni OKC) offers the pinnacle of luxury in Oklahoma City while paying homage to the city’s rich cultural history and modern growth. Omni OKC boasts a fully equipped fitness center, full-service spa and salon, rooftop swimming pool, multiple dining options, and the 17th floor, designed to host NBA basketball teams. The hotel features 605 luxurious guest rooms and offers gorgeous views of the 70-acre Scissortail Park and city skyline.

The design and MEP solutions provided for a hotel of such pristine caliber require precision, an astute vision, and the technical prowess to provide solutions for tight spacing requirements and ambitious design standards. Through successful collaboration with key project stakeholders and adhering to detailed design standards set forth by the Owner, our firm was able to provide solid infrastructure that will serve the hotel for decades.

Precise Design

The hotel’s magnificence is supported by an infrastructure that adheres to innovative and precise design standards. The Omni OKC hotel follows the Omni Hotels Architectural and Design Standards design guide, which specifies everything from how many air changes an hour the HVAC system handles to the layouts of kitchens, guestrooms, restaurants, etc. In addition to ensuring our design team adhered to the extensive design document, the interior designer required specific plumbing fixtures and other equipment that meshed with the hotel’s unique flair and sense of style.

“We worked with the interior designer to give the hotel a lush and relaxing atmosphere throughout each and every space,” Ryan Tommey P.E., a lead mechanical engineer on the project, stated, “A prime example is the unique plumbing fixtures with a brushed gold paint finish that accent the hotel’s restrooms.”

Space constraints necessitated precise design as well. The Owner wished to maximize usable tenant space and minimize space utilized for infrastructure. The hotel also features three points of entry, which limited the amount of back-of-house space our team had to house necessary mechanical and electrical infrastructure.

To uphold this request and allow the hotel to provide guests with luxurious levels of comfort, our firm delivered unique solutions that satisfied code requirements while being minimally invasive of the hotel’s rentable square footage. More specifically, our mechanical designers worked closely with the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) to create a cost-saving solution for the fire dampers at the guest suite outside air shafts.

“Instead of providing fire smoke dampers in each individual shaft, we were able to meet code requirements by installing fire dampers and running the air handling units continuously in a fire event.” Ryan explained, “This allowed our firm to receive approval from the AHJ while saving cost to the owner on mechanical infrastructure.”

Close coordination with the contractor allowed our firm to route electrical conduit and mechanical infrastructure more efficiently within the guest floors. Our mechanical team worked closely with the contractor to minimize the impact of the fan coil unit enclosure within the guest rooms, while our electrical team utilized in-slab conduit routing to make room for the mechanical infrastructure to fit within the ceiling plenum space.

“The in-slab conduit routing was a unique solution during the time this hotel was designed,” Nichole, an electrical designer on the project, explained, “Nowadays, however, this practice has become more commonplace.”

A Tall Order

Unique design requirements, on a wide variety of applications, also needed our firm’s expertise. Highlights of these applications include the building’s NBA accommodations floor, outdoor restaurant, rooftop pool, and the construction of an indoor transformer vault.

The building’s top floor was designed to host NBA basketball teams. This floor contained a higher floor-to-ceiling height to accommodate NBA players, including taller doorframes, customized beds, etc. Similar to the regular guestrooms, our team coordinated closely with the contractors to route MEPT infrastructure space within the top floor without impacting floor-to-ceiling height.

Since the building was built to span from property line to property line, the building required an indoor utility transformer vault. This is unique to new construction in downtown Oklahoma City and required close coordination with the utility company.

“Our firm has noticed an uptick of indoor transformer vaults in metropolitan areas such as Nashville and Chicago,” Nichole continued, “We leaned on previous project design experience in those cities to help us design this transformer vault, we also utilized multiple design meetings with the utility provider to develop the final design as well as close coordination with the utility company to help us design this transformer vault.”

Working to design the outdoor restaurants also posed distinct design challenges for our firm. Collaborating with the local health department led to the development of a 360-degree air curtain system on the third floor that protects the food from insect contamination while waiting to be served to patrons.

“Our goal is to provide owners with a well coordinated MEPT design,” Ryan stated, “Part of the coordination includes coordinating with AHJs during design.”

Luxury Defined

The end result produced a one-of-a-kind space for the Oklahoma City community to enjoy. By applying design solutions with precision and having the necessary expertise to solve unique design requirements, our firm played a vital role in bringing the project to fruition.

“Our relationship with Omni Hotels & Resorts is a special one, and I think this project is a great reflection of our relationship with them,” Nichole finished, “Not to mention all the great collaboration that happened with the contractors, engineers, and architects on the project as well.”

Interested in learning more about projects similar to the Omni OKC hotel? Read up on our work with Omni PGA Frisco. We also invite you to view our hospitality market sector page.