Signia by Hilton HQ Hotel and Convention Center Expansion

The Signia by Hilton headquarter hotel at the Georgia World Congress Center includes a 976-key 40-story tower, a 6-level amenity rich podium, and a two-story ballroom and event space expansion. The new tower has spectacular views in all directions, serves as a key connection between the convention center and the Home Depot Backyard/Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and includes over 100,000 SF of new meeting and convention space.

Various sustainable and cost-savings strategies were used throughout the project. First, the hotel tower is constructed on top of the original Georgia Dome pile foundations. Over 200 existing piles totaling over 13,000 feet in length were salvaged and reused to help support the massive new building through rigorous collaboration with the contractor.

Another particularly complex part of the new structure is appropriate management of floor vibrations for the ballroom, where dancing and other rhythmic activities take place. The new 2600-ton two-story steel-framed ballroom expansion structure lands on top of an existing two-story parking structure. Rather than use conventional, heavy steel trusses to manage floor vibrations for the new elevated, longspan ballroom floor, small steel hanger posts were installed to virtually tie the ballroom floor to the existing plaza level below so that the two levels act in unison to dissipate any noticeable ballroom floor vibrations. 

Finally, our team specified and designed Buckling Restrained Braced Frames (BRBFs), a proprietary braced frame system, that are highly ductile and effectively lowered seismic loading on the new ballroom structure to mitigate structural strengthening of the existing parking deck below.