Gaylord Pacific Resort and Convention Center
Vista, California
Merit Award
Presented by Mortenson Construction
owner RIDA Development Corp.
Leading design company HKS Architects
General Contractor Mortenson | McCarthy (Mortenson Construction and McCarthy Building Cos., A Joint Venture Partnership)
Civil Engineer Nasland Engineering
Structural Engineer Walter P Moore
MEP engineer Blum Consulting Engineers Inc.
Located on 36.6 acres of Chula Vista Bayfront, this 22-story, $1.3 billion hospitality landmark encompasses more than 2 million square feet of enclosed space and includes the nearly 600,000-square-foot convention center and 500,000-square-foot parking lot.
Amid post-pandemic market volatility, prices initially ran over budget, but an extensive nine-month preconstruction effort identified about $35 million in savings while maintaining the original design intent. The most significant savings come from structural changes.
The original design had web steel beams open across the convention center to support the roof, which had become prohibitively expensive. The joists were changed to a prefabricated truss system composed of standard steel members, resulting in seven-figure savings and an improved schedule.
The hotel has a 28,500 square meter atrium with a glass wall system and an ETFE roof, located under the hotel’s main tower. During the ETFE installation, crews topped the hotel tower with concrete and enclosed the exterior with EFIS panels, which were prefabricated off-site.
To ensure on-time delivery, the contractor developed a proactive approach to project scheduling that brought together all business partners more than six months before work began.
This provided sufficient time to identify schedules for each task and for seamless coordination across all parts of the project. As a result, the project was completed 6 weeks ahead of schedule in May 2025.
