“I consider myself a builder with design sense.”
In looking to define himself professionally for an observer, Russ Louderback, EVP of design and construction for White Lodging Services Corp., succinctly identifies what makes him not only a desirable asset for the owner/developer/operator, but a dream collaborator for the architects and designers who huddle with him to bring hotel projects out of the ground. And, as most discover, he has a lot of horse sense, too.
Over the course of nearly two decades with White Lodging, Louderback has helmed numerous development projects. Included among the most recent hotels he and his team worked on are the 1,012-room JW Marriott Austin and 366-room Westin Austin Downtown, both of which opened in Texas this year; the 255-room Hyatt Place, Nashville, TN; Hyatt Place, Austin, which was later sold; and a four-pack of hotels in Indianapolis that includes a JW Marriott, Courtyard by Marriott, Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott and SpringHill Suites by Marriott with an aggregate of 1,626 rooms.
“It’s part of my DNA to build buildings,” said Louderback. “My father was sort of a handyman, a blue-collar worker, an electrician. When I was a child, he would take me around, and we would renovate small projects. We later started building homes and renovating properties. We even renovated our own home, a farm in Wilmington, OH. That’s what sort of got me started in the construction industry. My dad taught me a lot of things.”
Not surprisingly, Louderback’s journey to his current position is akin to the work he does. With practical experience as a strong foundation, he built his career expertise incorporating a variety of “materials.”
“I didn’t go to college until I was 20. I laid out for a few years after high school because, at that time, I really didn’t know what I wanted to be,” he recalled.
Louderback’s choice, ultimately, was to go to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and study architecture, earning his degree in 1981. With credentials in hand, and a wife and a six-week-old son, Dustin, in tow, the budding architect set out for Houston, where he joined the hotel division of what was then Morris Aubrey Architects.
Drawings and concepts for various hotel projects ensued for two years before the young architect went to work for contractor HC Beck Construction, which helped create the blueprint for one of Louderback’s most-valued skills.
“This contractor put me into its estimating department… We would bid buildings and I would take bids and, when all the bidding was over and everyone left the office, I used to go in the bid bucket, take out all the bids and just stop and figure out why things cost what they did,” he said. “Most people would just think an electrical number, a mechanical number; well, I would start looking at the number of light fixtures per sq. ft. I’d look at the amount of precast needed.”
From that practice, Louderback became a conceptual estimator. “So, everything I do—it doesn’t matter what building White Lodging looks at—I think [about]the most efficient way we can do the structure, the most efficient way we can do the skin, the most efficient way we can do the foundation. I break every building into its components, then look at the individual component and make sure what we’re doing is adding value for the owner. And, that’s what our company is all about,” he said.
The builder also worked with Turner Construction doing pre-construction, estimating and project management, ultimately rising to senior project manager. He subsequently served as VP/pre-construction for the Southeast United States for Bovis Lend Lease before joining White Lodging Services Corp. in 1999, where he found a professional home and a wealth of project opportunities.
“We have a lot of projects under development. We’re trying to get a few started in Chicago, and we have few underway in Denver,” said Louderback. These include a tandem 248-room Hyatt Place and 113-room Hyatt House and, similarly, a Le Méridien connected to an AC Hotel by Marriott, all in downtown Denver. Additionally, another five projects are eyed for Austin. “My owner has a big appetite for development,” said the EVP.
As might be expected, Louderback doesn’t sit still much, except for the first day of the work week, when he’s checked into the home office; otherwise, he’s on job sites. “I’m looking at cost reports, schedules, how the development is going. I’m not going to manage our projects from the home office… I have to go visit and walk the projects and I do that a lot… I’m very hands-on and touch every project on a regular basis,” said the EVP.
Getting down in the dirt may not appeal to many executives of Louderback’s caliber; however, he is self-effacing when describing his EVP role. “I have a great staff that makes all this happen. I’m just one cog in the wheel,” he stressed.
That wheel not only includes White Lodging’s go-to architects HKS, Inc. and PFVS Architects, Inc., and interior design firm Simeone Deary Design Group, it also includes that six-week-old he brought to Houston. Following in his father’s footsteps, Dustin Louderback earned his architect’s degree from UT and has been with the company since 2006.
“Working with him, and watching his career develop, has been extremely rewarding, as [with]all of our staff members,” said Louderback, noting his son—one of four children—was the senior project manager on both the JW Marriott Indianapolis and the JW Marriott Austin.
Both JWs were key projects for the company’s owner, Chairman/CEO Bruce W. White, noted the EVP, with the development of the Indianapolis hotel a driver for adding another in Austin, where it received the White Lodging touch.
“When we develop a building, we want the guest to experience that city or region inside and outside the hotel. We’re always going to bring a lot of local materials into the project as much as possible, so we used a Texas limestone look on the JW in Austin—all-blue glass and a copper material on the exterior that you see a lot in Austin,” said Louderback.
Still, the executive is adamant about sticking to budget, and the various architects and designers who work with him have come to respect that outlook. “I’m not one of those developers who’s going to die on a sword for an architectural element. To me, architecture matters. I think, when you have a tall, sexy, glass building, it matters. But, what really holds on to your guest is how good those interiors are. You capture that guest based on the interiors. And, I’m not referring to interior designs; I’m referring to the interior architecture. That part of the project is equally important as the exterior,” he said.
Case in point: The AC Hotel/Le Méridien under development in Denver will see its bay widths shrink from 13 ft. to 11 ft., 6 in.; however, White Lodging will use a higher-quality finish in the guestrooms. The company hopes to inspire the industry by using smaller spaces, higher-quality finishes, more energy efficiency and more flexibility, Louderback indicated. “We’re trying to do a lot of sustainable architecture, and we’re trying to add value everywhere that we can,” he said, noting, while not all the new-builds are LEED-certified, they are built with LEED fundamentals.
“We have opened 90% of our projects on time and under budget,” he added. “We spend much time in planning our projects with our owners, management teams, architects and interior designers, so we all know the vision. Our projects have very few change orders as we spend so much time in planning. Once we break ground, we rarely review design after a project begins construction.”
The EVP acknowledged there are times when an exception is in order; overall, however, White Lodging’s philosophy is simple: “We don’t mind spending a little more money on finishes, but we want them to stand the test of time. We’re very skeptical of trendy hotels because what’s trendy today won’t be trendy in 10 years. You’re always going to see us use substantial materials,” he said.
Asked if there’s a particular architectural style he leans toward, Louderback indicated he basically lets the development site speak to him.
“It’s not really a style as much as what the site wants this building to be. We’re more about enhancing the site, bringing people into this property and having them be a part of it, as opposed to everything has to be modern, everything has to be whatever. I’m sort of over the phases of architecture,” he said, adding White Lodging “absolutely” wants the building to fit into the cityscape or environment where it’s located. “We do a lot of due diligence on sites before we buy them. We know what that building’s going to look like before we close on the sale.”
The team generally builds a massing model—a dimensionally accurate summary of a building’s shape and size, but with few, if any, details, all done with solid blocks—to help ascertain a project’s profile in the community.
“We don’t want the building to be the tallest there, but we do want it to be a prominent building,” said Louderback.
Meshing site with project is not without its challenges. For example, the EVP said the footprint for the Westin Austin Downtown was “just so tight,” that the 366 rooms went up across 20 floors, capped by a rooftop pool and bar with views of the city.
While White Lodging has been tackling larger projects, Louderback noted the company still does small, suburban select-service hotels and urban full-service properties. “Planning is just as important for the small ones as the big ones. We can’t [just]gravitate to one as it might be larger or more sexy; we have to provide every project—small or large—with the attention it needs,” he said.
While the pace of development remains robust at White Lodging, Louderback makes sure he takes time to recharge.
“I’m sort of a country boy at heart. I’m on my horse farm every weekend and riding my horses. That’s sort of my stress relief and where I come up with a lot of concepts and daydream, if you will,” he said, possibly considering the ideas of another “builder.”
Louderback is inspired by “all the work” of Frank Lloyd Wright, from Fallingwater in Pennsylvania to his Prairie-style homes and his use of stained glass. “Frank was the archetypical architect. He was literally the master builder. He did the architecture, the interiors, the furniture; he did everything about his building. And, that’s inspirational to me,” said Louderback, perhaps seeing his own his own professional raison d’être in Wright’s organic architecture philosophy.
“He didn’t change the site for the building; he designed the building around the site,” he concluded.