Vita Student Accommodation, Leeds

This project consisted of the adoption of a partially constructed structure intended for use as a Hilton Hotel. The redevelopment consisted of 312 student apartments over 16 storeys at a cost £56million on behalf of the Select Property Group, for their Vita Students brand. Firespec provided regular passive fire protection inspection services throughout the construction phase to ensure a consistently high level of fire stopping workmanship was being achieved and installation specifications were being met. Despite the uniformity of the majority of service installation and fire stopping throughout the building, some difficulties were experienced particularly in relation to adopted risers from the original hotel scheme which were not designed to accommodate the services now required from the bathroom pods.

In these cases, a number of non-standard designs and engineering judgements were attained, in conjunction with the manufacturer and installation sub-contractor, to be certain that the fire rating would be accomplished.

Dry Film Thickness Inspections were also provided for the intumescent coatings applied to the structural steel elements of the building.