$10M Renovation At Grand Traverse Resort Includes Laundry Facility Redo

ACME, MI— A three-year, $10 million renovation program now underway at the Grand Traverse Resort and Spa here includes an upgrade of the on-premises laundry facility at the 660-room property. “Our goal is to have the laundry facility renovation completed by May 2004,” said J. Michael DeAgostino, public relations manager for the property. The 6,500-square-foot laundry opened in 1986 and is situated in a cluster of maintenance buildings one-half mile from the main resort complex. “The size of our laundry facility is unique in our neck of the woods. It is one of the largest in northern Michigan,” DeAgostino said. The facility handles 200 million pounds of laundry annually, he added. “We do not process laundry from other hotels. It is exclusively for our use,” he said. “It does all the hotel linens, towels, sheets, pillowcases and some uniforms, primarily from the banquet and culinary staff, as well as housekeeping and maintenance. We have 85,000 square feet of banquet and meeting space so a significant amount of the laundry is banquet linens like tablecloths and napkins,” he said. Overall, he estimated that 59% of the laundry is flatwork, items like sheets, tablecloths and napkins, and 41% is “rough dry” which would be things like towels and other terry items. The Grand Traverse Resort laundry does not handle guest laundry or dry cleaning. “Those items are sent out,” DeAgostino said. New Equipment During the current renovation program, $600,000 will be spent to replace equipment in the laundry facility. DeAgostino noted that requests-for-proposals on the equipment were due back from suppliers at presstime. The new equipment specified in the 16-page RFP for the laundry included three categories: • Washer/extractors: In this category, the resort will be purchasing two 250-pound tilting high-extract washer extractors; three 125-pound industrial high-extract washer extractors; and one 80-pound industrial high-extract washer extractor. • Dryers: Five 170-pound dryers will be purchased. • Miscellaneous equipment: This category includes one platform scale system with a 5,000-pound capacity; one air compressor; and one large-piece folder/cross-folder. Once installed, a service representative from the supplier will demonstrate the new equipment for the staff, which includes a mix of full and part-timers. “In the summer when we’re the busiest we have 15 employees in the laundry; in the winter, we have seven,” DeAgostino said. The laundry operates seven days a week, 10 hours per day, he added. There are a number of advantages in having an on-premises laundry, DeAgostino noted. “The number one advantage is having immediate control and communication allowing us to respond as the needs of the hotel change. There are also cost benefits,” he said, but could not reveal figures. Monitoring quality is also a key advantage, he added. Along with upgrading the laundry, the renovation at the Grand Traverse will refurbish all guestrooms in the hotel, remodel the resort’s Trillium Restaurant, and make a variety of infrastructure improvements including repaving golf cart paths and parking lots. Additionally, new equipment will be purchased for the health club, maintenance of the golf course, and the kitchen. A new golf cart fleet and several new service vehicles will also be purchased. “One of the things we’re most excited about is the installation of a key-card system to replace the traditional keys we now use,” DeAgostino said. The installation of the key-card system is scheduled for February and will include the property’s 234 hotel rooms, 186 Tower rooms and the 240 condominiums in the rental program.