Battle of the Codes

The $25 million San Francisco Hilton was planned to be unique among world hotels. It would ingeniously combine the best features of a hotel and a motel. On seven of its 18 floors, rooms would sur round a garage core, built under a roof garden and serviced by a spiral ramp. A guest could drive in, pick up his key without getting out of his car, and drive to his room, parking his car right outside. But to San Francisco's Chief Fire Marshal Albert E. Hayes, the guardian of the city's antiquated building code, the hotel was too unusual. Even before he saw the plans, he declared it a firetrap, and went to war with Architect William Tabler.

During more than a year of tedious negotiating, Hayes demanded 140 separate changes, and Tabler gave in on 124. The changes and delays added $2,000,000 to costs. But to give in on the remaining 16 would throw building costs so high that the project would be uneconomical. Hilton's attorney finally took the fight to the California district court. There last week Tabler won. The court ordered the city to issue a building permit. Appeals by the city may delay the actual start, despite a plea from San Francisco merchants to let the court decision stand.

"We feel that this building is most important to the city and to our convention business," declared the Down Town Association. "While the city departments must be diligent, that does not mean those departments must be unreasonable."

One-Man Boom. Cherubic Bill Tabler, 45, who is also chairman of the codes committee of the American Institute of Architects, is an old battler against outmoded building codes. Since 1946, when he began specializing in hotels, he has built $100 million worth of hotels around the world. His latest: the Ponce in Puerto Rico. He now has another $200 million worth in the works. His hotels are noted for being profitable, but to make them so he has had to combat a host of ancient building restrictions that do not recognize the virtues of modern cost-cutting materials and methods. Since building costs have skyrocketed (the Washington Statler Hilton built before World War II cost $6,700 a room; the Pittsburgh Hilton, finished late last year, cost $12,500 a room), Tabler says that unnecessary expenses due to obsolete building codes "can break a hotel." Older cities are not always the most backward. Dallas refused to accept a bathtub drain trap that Boston had accepted about 50 years ago. Tabler did battle, got the code updated, saved $15,000 on that one change alone.

Progress Abroad. Tabler runs into more resistance to new ideas among U.S. building inspectors than European. "Europeans are eager to accept any new idea we develop that is approved by the fire underwriters," he said. "The London Hilton would cost 10% to 15% more if we were building it in New York." The British accepted easier-to-install copper plumbing and approved a modern plumbing layout that eliminates 80% of the pipe. New York will not, because the plumbers' union objects. Any attempt to change a code brings a cry from labor unions and trade associations. The plumbers complained, and the Lead Industries Association threatened to cancel a convention in a Hilton hotel after Tabler publicly advocated eliminating lead pipe in bathroom drains. He hopes that his San Francisco victory will make things easier for his cause in the future.

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