CLOUDLAND AT MCLEMORE RESORT

LOCATION: Lookout Mountain, Georgia
PURPOSE: Hospitality
SQUARE FEET: 203,000
STATUS: Complete

Cloudland is a 245-room hotel with 33,535 square feet of conference space, two restaurants, a coffee shop, fitness facility, a full-service spa, a cliff-edge infinity pool, event lawn, and outdoor cliff-edge bar and grille. Cloudland is part of Hilton Worldwide’s Curio Collection, and features 20,000 square feet of conference space, a full-service spa, café, two restaurants, and a cliffside bar and grille.

Construction commenced on September 23, 2022 and concluded April 15, 2024.

Workers put the finishing touches on the 245-room Cloudland.

CHALLENGES

  1. Optimal financial timing required long-term interest rates to drop below short-term rates, indicating that investors would move money away from short-term bonds and into long-term ones.

  2. Design required evaluation of the project’s cliff-edge site, including geotechnical studies and optimal site positioning to maximize location and minimize cost.

  3. COVID-19 posed a significant threat to construction delivery delays, material shortages, and labor cost increases.

  4. The project required attracting construction and resort employees to travel to and from the site’s rural northwest Georgia location.

SOLUTIONS

  1. The timing of an inverted yield curve in 2021 allowed financing of the project through the issuance of first and second tier bonds, which were purchased in less than two hours.

  2. The original hotel location was repositioned, saving an estimated $8MM, while retaining the site’s beauty and views.

  3. While adjustments were necessary, hotel construction remained on schedule and on budget from beginning to end, and attracted the required number of construction staff.

  4. Approximately 150 of the required 200 hotel employees were hired inside of sixty days, thus alleviating concern that the project would attract the required workforce.