With the 6,350th glass pane hoisted into place on Sept. 15, the only visible sign of anything having been awry at Atlanta’s 723-ft-tall Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel—the tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere—is the exterior hoist, set to come down by mid-November. But for more than two years, there were pockmarks on the glass-clad facade, which was hit by flying debris during a freak tornado in March 2008.
The 35-year-old hotel stayed open, minus damaged rooms, during the year-long, $22-million project. For several reasons, owner Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., White Plains, N.Y., elected to install all new tinted glass—not just the 1,000-plus panels scarred, shattered or ripped out by flying debris—and to rehabilitate the entire curtain wall.