Hotel PIP & guest room renovations
A property improvement plan is the brand’s list of what your hotel must change to keep or earn its flag, and it comes with a deadline. Grandview Contractors executes PIP and guest room renovations in Salt Lake City and Utah County hotels floor by floor under a Utah DOPL B100 general contractor license, so the rest of the property keeps selling rooms.
When a PIP renovation is the scope, and when it isn’t
You’re on the right page if a franchisor has issued a PIP at a change of ownership, a license renewal, or a brand prototype update. It arrives as a room-by-room list with a completion date tied to your franchise agreement. The scope is set by someone else’s standard and the schedule by someone else’s calendar, which is what separates it from any other commercial renovation.
If the scope stops at the front desk, breakfast area, and corridors, our lobby and common-area renovation page is the closer fit. If it’s mostly porte-cochère, cladding, and entry doors, that’s facade and storefront renovation. Adding keys or a wing is hotel construction. Most PIPs combine guest rooms with at least one of those; we scope them as one project with one schedule.
How a guest room PIP actually runs
A PIP splits into two procurement streams that have to land on the same floor in the same week. FF&E (casegoods, headboards, soft goods, mattresses, art) is typically owner-purchased through brand-approved vendors. Construction scope (bathrooms, flooring, wall finishes, lighting, PTAC or VTAC units, doors and hardware) is ours. We build the schedule backward from FF&E delivery dates so a finished room isn’t waiting on a headboard.
- Model room first. One room built to full PIP spec and submitted for brand approval before the floor rolls. Spec questions get answered where a fix costs one room.
- Rooms out of order by block. One floor or wing at a time, 20 to 40 keys, sequenced so housekeeping and elevators keep working. Your revenue manager gets the ROO calendar before we mobilize.
- Trades in a fixed rotation. Demo, plumbing rough-in, electrical, drywall and paint, tile, flooring, fixtures, then FF&E install and a brand-standard punch. The rotation repeats floor by floor, so each block gets shorter.
- Corridors last, from the far end. Carpet, wallcovering, lighting, and fire-rated door hardware go in after that floor’s rooms are back in inventory, worked away from the elevator lobby.
Electrical and plumbing are performed by licensed electricians and plumbers under our contract; we sequence, inspect, and quality-check their work inside the room rotation. The plans may change. The standard does not.
Guest bathrooms and the Utah details behind them
The bathroom is the most expensive 40 square feet in any PIP and where most brands now demand change: tub-to-shower conversions, solid-surface surrounds, glass enclosures, vanity lighting to spec. Converting a tub room to a shower room moves the drain, usually the valve, and sometimes the wet wall. Hard water along the Wasatch Front scales valves and showerheads faster than spec sheets assume, so fixture selections get coordinated with your property’s water treatment, not just the brand’s finish schedule.
A renovation that alters guest rooms also has to deliver the prescribed count of accessible rooms, with roll-in showers, clear floor space, and controls at reach ranges set by the ADA Standards. We assign those keys during the model room phase, because a roll-in shower needs a different floor assembly than a curbed one and that decision precedes the first demolition.
Two more Utah items belong in a PIP scope. Tall casegoods, wall-mounted TVs, and headboards get anchored to studs or blocking in every room; the Wasatch fault and a sleeping occupancy make anchorage non-negotiable. And timing matters: Salt Lake County properties lean on ski-season occupancy, Utah County properties on university and event calendars, so the ROO plan goes into the shoulder months where lost revenue per key is lowest.
What does a hotel PIP renovation cost per key in Utah?
As a ballpark planning number only, construction scope on a select-service guest room PIP often runs $8,000 to $25,000 per key, with the bathroom deciding where you land. A finishes refresh that keeps the tub sits at the low end; a tub-to-shower conversion with relocated plumbing and new vanity electrical pushes toward the top. Upscale flags and layout reconfigurations exceed it. FF&E is on top, priced through the brand’s vendors.
Beyond the bathroom, the price movers are keys per block (bigger blocks cost less per key and more per month in lost revenue), conditions behind the walls in older properties, after-hours work on occupied floors, and corridor life-safety scope: fire-rated doors, closers, and sprinkler head relocations that come with new ceilings. We give a per-key planning range at the first walk-through and a real estimate once the model room is built and priced. Our license is verifiable at dopl.utah.gov.
Questions we actually get
Can you finish the PIP before our brand deadline?
Usually, if planning starts early. The constraint is rarely construction speed; it’s model room approval turnaround and FF&E lead times, which can run several months. We build the schedule backward from your PIP date, order long-lead items before demolition, and tell you plainly if the calendar doesn’t close.
How many rooms will be out of order at once?
Typically one floor or wing, 20 to 40 keys, for a few weeks per block. Fewer rooms per block means less lost revenue at a time but a longer project and higher per-key cost. We model both, let your revenue team choose, and publish the rooms-out-of-order calendar before mobilizing.
Does a tub-to-shower conversion change the cost much?
Yes. Keeping the tub and replacing the surround, valve trim, and glass is a finishes job. Converting to a shower moves the drain and usually the valve, adds waterproofing and a new pan, and often triggers vanity electrical updates. It’s the biggest per-key swing in most PIPs.
Related services
Hotel PIP work sits inside our commercial renovation practice and the broader renovation and build-out family. Phasing comes from occupied-space renovation, electrical and plumbing run through MEP coordination, and multi-unit programs with similar logic live under bulk unit renovation.
Tell us what you’re working on
We reply within a couple of hours during business hours — a day at most. You’ll get a straight read on scope, sequence, and budget before anyone commits to anything.