Hotel Renovation Guide: How to Renovate a Hotel Without Closing

How to renovate a hotel?

Renovate a hotel in seven steps: assess the building against the brand standard, set the scope and the phasing plan, order the long-lead items, pull the permits, build a mock-up room, run the phases one section at a time, then turn each phase over with its own punch list. The order matters more than the speed of any one step.

1. Assess the building and read the brand standard. Walk every floor with the owner or the asset manager and write down what is actually there, room by room, rather than what the old drawings say. If the property carries a flag, the property improvement plan sets the finishes and hardware down to a finish code.

2. Set the scope and the phasing plan. Decide how many rooms can be out of service at once, and agree that number with the general manager before anything gets priced. A property in a slow month can give up a full floor. One selling out on weekends gives up a wing, and that number is the part of the hotel renovation process owners underestimate most.

3. Order the long-lead items. Guest room doors, frames, hardware, tile, casegoods and light fixtures are what hold a phase up. Order them before demolition starts and track the shipments against the room list. Freight to the Prairies adds time, and a February delivery can sit longer than the quote suggests.

4. Pull the permits and get drawings where the scope needs them. Anything structural, anything that changes a fire separation and anything that touches exiting needs both. Saskatchewan adopted the 2020 editions of the National Building Code, the National Energy Code for Buildings and the National Plumbing Code effective January 1, 2024 under The Construction Codes Act, announced by the Government of Saskatchewan in December 2023. We produce sealed drawings in house through our design-build service.

5. Build a mock-up room. One guest room, finished to the full specification, before the first real phase of the hotel room renovation starts. The owner walks it, the brand signs it off, and anything that needs changing gets changed once instead of forty times.

6. Run the phases. Hoard the area, protect the routes, hold the noise windows, and close one section out before opening the next. Each phase carries a start date, a return-to-service date and an agreed access route.

7. Turn each phase over on its own. Rooms go back into inventory section by section instead of waiting for the whole project. We punch out the phase, clean it, and hand the released room numbers to the front desk in writing.

What is the correct order of renovation?

The correct order is the order the trades depend on each other: demolition, rough-ins, inspections, drywall and ceilings, millwork and tile, paint, flooring, fixtures and FF&E, then the final clean. Work out of sequence and you pay twice, because the second trade damages what the first one finished.

Two sequence rules save the most money. Flooring goes in after the dusty and wet trades are done, and door hardware goes on last so the phase stays locked until the day it is released.

Renovating guest floors while the hotel stays open

Guest floors are where phasing earns its keep. We start from a room list, agree how many rooms can be down at once, and give every phase a start date, a return date and a protected route. The front desk gets that schedule early enough to block bookings around it instead of moving them later.

On guest-floor work such as our Alt Hotel Saskatoon project, the scope covered the corridors and the guest room entries, including the doors, the hardware and the room number plaques. That runs section by section: hoard off the length of corridor in the phase, protect the finished floor outside it, and keep the doors still in service reachable.

Exits are the part nobody negotiates. Stairwells and exit routes stay usable and lit for the whole phase, and any alternate route is posted and walked with the property before the first sheet of hoarding goes up.

Alt Hotel Saskatoon guest corridor

Alt Hotel Saskatoon room entry and plaque

Exit route kept lit and usable

Dust control on an occupied floor

The controls on an occupied floor are short and boring, which is why they work. One agreed service elevator for construction traffic, cleaned daily along the route back to it. Noise windows set before day one. Trades in and out through a back-of-house door rather than the lobby. Housekeeping told which rooms are released before the shift starts.

None of it is unique to hotels. It is the same discipline we use on occupied multi-family buildings, including our capital and maintenance work for Avenue Living, where tenants are home while the work goes on.

Restaurants and lounges: building the schedule backward from the reopening date

Food and beverage spaces are the opposite problem. A guest floor can be released a few rooms at a time, while a restaurant or lounge reopens on one date, and every trade has to fit in front of it.

So we schedule those rooms in reverse. Fix the reopening date, work back through the final clean, the furniture install, the lighting, the millwork and the rough-ins, and see whether the long-lead items land in time. If they do not, the honest answer comes before the contract rather than in week six.

At Alt Hotel Saskatoon we renovated the restaurant and the lounge. The finished lounge has angled black ceiling baffles, a wood-slat accent wall, leather banquette seating, pendant lighting and built-in wood cubby shelving, and the bar area has a hanging planter trough and wishbone dining chairs. Brand-standard finishes were owner-supplied and installed to spec, which is how most hotel programs run.

Alt Hotel Saskatoon lounge

Alt Hotel Saskatoon lounge ceiling

Alt Hotel Saskatoon restaurant and bar

When the owner supplies the finishes, we receive them, count them against the area list, and say early if a shipment will not cover the phase. A hotel restaurant fit-out runs on the same mechanics as any tenant improvement: a fixed reopening date, rules about access, and a kitchen that has to pass inspection before anyone serves food.

How long does it take to renovate a hotel?

Nobody can answer this honestly without seeing the property, because the phasing plan sets the duration, not the amount of work. The same 60 rooms take far longer at 6 rooms per phase than at 20. These are the drivers that move the date:

• Scope per room. Soft goods and paint move quickly. Anything that opens a bathroom wall or touches the plumbing stack does not.
• Rooms released per phase. The biggest lever on the calendar.
• Lead times. A late container stops a phase that is otherwise ready.
• Permits and drawings. Structural work, fire separations and exiting need review time.
• Inspections. Each one is a fixed date the phase cannot pass without.
• Season. Prairie winter affects deliveries and anything that needs a dry, heated space to cure.

What we commit to is the shape of the schedule: every phase gets a start date, a return-to-service date, and a written plan for which rooms are down and which routes stay open.

What is the average cost to renovate a hotel room?

There is no reliable Saskatchewan average, so treat any single number as a shape rather than a budget. The published figures worth knowing are American and dated.

HVS wrote in February 2017 that a Holiday Inn Express guestroom renovation under the Formula Blue program ran $6,000 to $12,000 per room, with a whole-property Hampton by Hilton PIP at $20,000 to $30,000 per room for hotels built between 1990 and 1995. Those are 2017 US dollars for US brand programs, and HVS said the piece was not a cost guide for investors.

For current numbers by category and hotel tier, the 2025 Hotel Cost Estimating Guide from Nehmer and HVS Design is a free download. Released in May 2025 in its seventeenth year, it splits costs across guestrooms, guest bathrooms, corridors, public spaces, food and beverage outlets and infrastructure for six hotel tiers.

What drives hotel renovation cost per room in Saskatchewan:

• Soft goods refresh versus a full renovation. Carpet and paint sit in one world. Opening walls sits in another.
• Bathrooms. Waterproofing, tile and fixtures make it the most expensive square metre in the room.
• Brand standards. When a program specifies the finish code, that finish is the price.
• Mechanical, electrical and plumbing. Old stacks and ventilation that no longer meets code turn a cosmetic scope into a real one.
• Freight and season. Winter adds heat, hoarding and slower deliveries.
• Phasing itself. Smaller phases cost more per room because crews remobilize more often.

We do not quote hotels off a rate card. We walk the property, build the room list, and return a fixed price with a phasing plan. Book a site visit and the quote follows within 48 hours.

Should hotels be renovated every 7 years?

Seven years is close to the common brand cycle, but it describes two different projects. Hospitality Net reported in December 2022, citing JLL, that hoteliers typically replaced soft goods like bedspreads, carpet and upholstery every 5 to 7 years, with full-scale renovations including case goods and bathrooms at 11 to 14 year intervals.

So the seven-year number is the soft-goods refresh, not the gut. A hotel refurbishment on that cycle keeps rooms current between the bigger renovations that come around once a decade.

Two events override the calendar. A franchise renewal usually comes with a property improvement plan, and so does a sale, because the incoming owner inherits whatever the brand requires. That is why an owner thinking about selling should price the likely PIP before listing.

What is the hardest room to renovate?

Guest bathrooms. Everything difficult about a hotel sits in about four square metres: waterproofing that has to be right the first time, plumbing stacked through the floors above and below, ventilation that has to move enough air, and accessibility rules that can force a layout change. Get the waterproofing wrong and the damage shows up in the room below.

Back-of-house is the close second, and the kitchen is the worst of it. Grease-laden exhaust, fire suppression, floor drains, health inspection and long-lead equipment all sit in one room the property can rarely afford to close. Our Red Seal journeyman plumber handles that rough-in in house and our gas work runs under licence 6212, so the trades that hold up a kitchen are ones we control.

Hotel renovation checklist

• A room or area list for the property, with the scope written against each line
• The brand standard or property improvement plan in hand, with the finish codes
• An agreed number of rooms that can be out of service at once
• A phasing plan with a start date and a return-to-service date for every phase
• Long-lead items priced and ordered before demolition starts
• Permits and sealed drawings for structural, fire separation and exiting work
• A mock-up room approved by the owner and the brand
• Hoarding, floor protection and dust control specified, not assumed
• Exit routes usable and lit for every phase
• One agreed service elevator and a back-of-house route for trades
• Written noise windows for demolition and coring
• Owner-supplied materials counted against the room list on arrival
• Insurance certificates, the surety bond and WCB coverage on file before mobilization

Frequently asked questions

Can a hotel stay open during a renovation?

In most cases yes, if the work is phased. We take a floor or a section at a time, hoard it off, and keep construction traffic on routes guests do not use. Rooms return to inventory as each phase closes. The trade-off is time, since smaller phases stretch the calendar.

How long does a hotel renovation take?

It depends on the phasing plan more than the scope. Rooms released per phase, lead times on doors and furniture, permit review and inspection dates all move it. We give every phase a start date and a return-to-service date rather than one number for the property.

How much does a hotel renovation cost per room?

There is no dependable Saskatchewan average. Cost is driven by whether the scope is a soft goods refresh or a full renovation, how much bathroom work is involved, what the brand standard specifies, and the condition of the mechanical systems. We quote a fixed price after a site visit.

Do you renovate hotels outside Saskatoon?

Yes. Our commercial service area is Saskatoon, Regina, North Battleford and Prince Albert, and hospitality work runs the same way in all four: phased by section, with the loud work inside agreed windows. Call the toll-free line about properties outside those cities.

Can you work with owner-supplied brand-standard finishes?

Yes, and that is how most hotel programs work. The owner or the brand buys the finishes, fixtures and door hardware to the specified codes. We receive the shipments, count them against the room list, install to spec, and tell you early if a delivery will not cover its phase.

What insurance does a hotel renovation contractor need?

Ask for proof of commercial general liability, a surety bond and current workers compensation coverage before anyone mobilizes. We carry $5M commercial general liability, a $50,000 surety bond and active WCB Saskatchewan coverage, and we are members of the SRHBA, Merit and the Saskatchewan Construction Safety Association.

How do I choose a contractor for hotel work?

Look for occupied-property experience, in-house trades and a real phasing plan in the proposal rather than a single end date. Our guide to choosing among Saskatoon construction companies covers the questions worth asking, and our hotel and hospitality renovation page sets out how we run this work.