Bailey Hotel & Resort, Cairns, Queensland

Tourism and hospitality group, Crystalbrook Collection, is set to transform the skyline of Cairns City (Queensland, Australia) with an almost 320 million Euro investment in three new international hotels.
The company is the Australian business of the Dubai- based Ghassan Aboud Group (GAG), headed by billionaire businessman and philanthropist Muhammed Ghassan Aboud. Mr Aboud holidayed in tropical North Queensland in 2016 and became so enchanted with the beauty of the area that he invested a slice of his fortune in the region’s tourism industry. With a cost of over 82 million Euros, the new Bailey Crystalbrook Collection hotel is the second of three five-star hotels. It includes 217 rooms, 110 apartments, 5 restaurants and bars including a signature Crystalbrook Station steakhouse and Parilla grill, a 24-hour fitness centre and meeting spaces for up to 150 people. The hotel opened in November 2019 and is Cairns’ second new five-star hotel in over 20 years.

Project overview
The development of Bailey Hotel & Resort saw the construction of two towers: Lake Street Tower Hotel providing 217 rooms and Abbott Street Apartment. The Apartment tower includes 110 apartments encompassing one, two and three-bedroom options, as well as a lap pool, a
gym, a spa and a games room.
The Bailey towers share a basement and common area podium. The hotel provides a range of separate facilities to compliment both towers.
Bailey Hotel Tower offers exclusive facilities, including Bar/Grill & Colada Restaurants along with a “Milk Bar", a swimming pool, a 24 Hour Fitness Centre, four event/function areas, concierge and
gift shop.
The completion of this five-star hotel was a large boost for the Cairns community. This project is environmentally responsive and reflects the unique qualities that the owners wanted to portray in this beautiful part of Australia. The nature of this project was to deliver a modern, innovative and aesthetically pleasing, luxurious hotel and resort. Prime Constructions was engaged to deliver this project and took on a multi-faceted role that incorporated project management, principal contractor and full fit-out contractual works. The lead architects, Thompson Adsett, delivered the design development, construction documentation and interior design for the main hotel. The restaurants and bar were designed by Jess White and her team at CTRL Space.
Together the all Queensland design team has delivered a space that puts it on par with the new wave of five-star hotels that have infiltrated other areas of Australia.
 

The pools
The multiple pool installations were awarded to Baldwin Aquatics, a pool builder located in South Queensland. Contractors waterproofed the pool substrates by embedding MAPENET 150 alkali- resistant fibreglass mesh into the first layer of MAPELASTIC SMART cementitious waterproofing membrane. MAPELASTIC SMART is a highly flexible waterproofing mortar that is ideal for use in swimming pools to protect the concrete structure that may be subject to vibration and cracks.
To fully embed the MAPENET 150 reinforcement mesh, a second layer of MAPELASTIC SMART was applied.
Over 1000 m² of ceramic tiles were installed over the waterproofing membrane using KERAFLEX MAXI S1 high-performance cementitious adhesive, while joints were grouted with KERAPOXY two-component, acid-resistant epoxy grout.
KERAPOXY is an ideal grout for joints in swimming pools due to the product’s excellent mechanical and chemical resistance, smooth final surface, low water absorption, uniform colour and resistance to ultra-violet rays and atmospheric agents. It is easily workable with no shrinkage; therefore no cracking or fissures are present in the grouted joints.

Installing ceramic tiles in public areas
The contract for ceramic installation in all public areas was awarded to Jerry and The Tilemakers, professional tiling contractors also located in North Queensland.
Contractors installed all ceramic tiles through the hotel resort using KERAFLEX MAXI S1. This adhesive is not only a high performance and versatile mortar but can also be used to install large format tiles, porcelain tiles, ceramic and mosaic tiles as well as natural stone. It is thixotropic, has a long open time and can be installed in a up to 15 mm thick layer.
Ceramic tiles were installed in the restaurant areas, podium decks, balconies and walkways after installing acoustic underlay with ULTRABOND ECO S955 1K polyurethane adhesive.

Preparing substrates and waterproofing
In the bathrooms, screeds were created using TOPCEM, a special normal-setting, quick-drying, controlled-shrinkage hydraulic binder, and special aggregates. The substrates were then treated with PLANICRETE SP (a multi-purpose latex to create high performance mortars and screeds distributed in Australia by Mapei Australia) and waterproofed with two coats of MAPEGUM WPS, fast-drying flexible liquid membrane. TOPCEM was also used for screeds around the pools to create falls and on all balconies to create falls to drains prior to the application of MAPELASTIC SMART highly flexible waterproofing membrane.

LVT and wooden floorings
Acoustic underlay was installed with ULTRABOND ECO S955 1K one-component, solvent-free, sililated polymer-based adhesive prior to the installation of LVT (Luxury Vinyl Tiles) on the floors in the hotel rooms.
Contractors used ULTRABOND ECO MS 4 LVT WALL high performance, one-component silylated polymer-based adhesive, which is also suitable for all kinds of textile and resilient floorings, to install the LVT planks.
Wooden floors were installed in the restaurant and foyer areas using ULTRABOND ECO S955 1K, one-component, solvent-free, sililated polymer adhesive with very low emission level of volatile organic compounds (VOC), which is suitable for bonding all types of wooden floors.

MAPEPROOF TURBO 1K one-component, solvent-free moisture vapour barrier was applied to the concrete surfaces prior to the installation, followed by a coat of ECO PRIM T PLUS solvent-free, low odour acrylic primer in water dispersion. Contractors also used ULTRAPLAN ECO, ultra-fast hardening self-levelling smoothing compound, to correct any irregularities in the concrete surface.