Visitors to Saint Martin, an island in the Caribbean that is divided into two sides — one French and one Dutch — will get to enjoy a new $20 million hotel addition to the existing Divi Little Bay Resort on the Dutch side. This winning project in the ICF Builder Awards Heavy Commercial category consists of three connecting, four-story buildings providing 98 high-end resort rooms. Built with Nudura ICF blocks, the addition provides 77,955 square feet of floor area with a total of 85,400 square feet of 6-inch and 8-inch ICF walls with concrete composite floors and roofs.

The project was designed for high seismic and hurricane wind loads. ICF usage extends to the elevator shafts and mechanical buildings.

Design & Building Considerations
The design of the project had to fit on a sloped site and within narrow property constraints that backed up to a main road, explains Andy Horgan, key accounts executive covering K-12, federal, and commercial clients for Tremco CPG, maker of Nudura. The Divi Resort remained open throughout the entire construction time-frame of 80 weeks. Horgan says ICF installation time was only 120 days out of that time, and the crew saved 60 days by building with ICFs.

“The ability for ICFs to incorporate reinforced pilasters, columns, and beams and pour those monolithically with ICF forms significantly reduced the build time, when compared to the traditional method of pouring columns and beams and infilling with CMU masonry,” Horgan notes.

Speed and simplicity of construction were significant factors for selecting to use Nudura ICF solution for the project. Divi’s previous positive experience building a similar resort facility in Aruba, was also a key factor, explains Horgan. “Divi has been a leading and progressive resort manager/developer in Aruba and actually has their own energy manager/engineer on staff to help provide design and system recommendations to realize their corporate sustainability goals and reduce energy usage as much as possible throughout all their operations,” says Horgan.

The owners invested in rooftop PV solar, which makes sense given that the cost of energy in Aruba and St. Maarten is three to four times higher than costs in the U.S. The design uses ICFs for all exterior walls and all demising walls between the rooms to maximize the energy efficiency and at the same time provide excellent sound attenuation.

The GC for the project was Gemini Contractors, who self-performed the ICF installation with no previous experience. “After a short learning curve and with the support of Nudura and its trainers, they were able to build a floor per week with six to 10 men,” says Horgan.

The addition produced a building design that provided an ideal backdrop for the Divi Resort and also helped screen the resort from the main road. The elevation of the new addition means that every room, including the rooms on the ground floor, have direct ocean views over the existing buildings of the resort.

Significance & Impact
The Divi Little Bay project was the first significant ICF project to be built on the Dutch side of the island. Previously, only a few single custom homes had been built using ICFs, says Horgan. “This project has gained interest from other developers on the island and two other apartment projects are currently in design development,” Horgan says.

He says the owner of Divi Resorts chose to use ICFs, and the selection was based on previous success using Nudura in Aruba. “The Divi team really didn’t need much convincing to use ICFs for the project,” Horgan says. “They already had positive construction cost data and, more importantly, real-time energy and operation cost data from their previous ICF builds to draw from.”

Due to the positive experience of Divi Resorts with using Nudura, they plan to start construction on two eight-story hotel room additions, to be built at their Divi Phoenix Beach Resort in Aruba in 2024.