Hotelier Middle East caught up with Alec FITOUT development manager Tom Gilmartin to talk about the recently completed Waldorf Astoria DIFC project, the importance of value engineering and the exciting projects the company has coming up.

Our team recently completed the Waldorf Astoria DIFC project. The luxury hotel includes:

• 275 luxury guestrooms, suites and branded apartments
• A wellness spa
• Diverse restaurants and lounges with indoor/outdoor dining options
• Fexible, creative meeting spaces including a library with open kitchen.
• Covering over 35,000m2 our scope included fit out, MEP, FF&E, kitchen equipment, AV, structural and façade reworking.

All projects present challenges which are typically overcome by our experienced team working closely with the client and consultant teams. Our commitment to deliver a luxury project to an agreed target budget through the use of alternative finishes and materials challenged our design, operational and procurement teams to propose solutions that maintained design intent and performance whilst meeting aggressive budget targets.

Value Engineering, when executed correctly, provides the client with alternative finishes that maintain the design intent and performance whilst saving on budget. Cost cutting is replacing finishes with inferior products or eliminating design features in order to reduce costs. We offer value engineering on all our projects and have considerable experience matching design intent and performance for cost effective budgets.