A Florida hotel exterior can be repainted while the property keeps serving guests when the work is planned with the hotel team before the first lift arrives: agreed work areas, clear entrances and parking, daily cleanup, and the right coating system for every surface. The color is the part guests notice. The coating system underneath is what protects the building until the next repaint.

Here is what that looked like on the exterior repaint of the Hilton Garden Inn in Oldsmar, FL, and what owners, asset managers and hotel managers in Tampa Bay should settle with any contractor before a similar project.

1. The project: a five-story hotel in Oldsmar

The Hilton Garden Inn in Oldsmar is a five-story hotel at the north end of Tampa Bay. Bayshore Painters repainted the exterior using boom lifts, updating the building from its yellow and orange scheme to a white and gray palette.

A hotel is different from most commercial buildings we paint. An office has tenants on a weekday schedule and a shopping center has storefronts with set hours. A hotel has guests arriving and leaving all day, every day, and the front entrance, the drive-under canopy and the guest parking are in use the whole time. That shapes how the work has to be planned.

Ask your contractor: Who will be our day-to-day contact on site, and who on our team should they talk to before each new area starts?

2. Start with the coating system, not the color

A color change gets the attention, but the exterior coating is part of the building envelope. In Florida sun, rain and humidity, a coating that has started to fail lets water into stucco, block and trim, and the repairs grow from there. The goal of a hotel repaint is the same as any other building we paint: the right coating system, applied the right way.

On our commercial projects that means a few steps before any finish coat goes on:

• A soft pressure wash with an environmentally friendly cleaning solution.
• Sealant replacement where joints, windows and penetrations need it.
• Cosmetic, nonstructural stucco and EIFS crack repair so the new finish goes on a sound surface.
• Products specified for each surface with the manufacturer, so stucco, metal and trim each get the coating made for them.

Our services page covers sealants, waterproofing and stucco and EIFS repair in more detail.

Ask your contractor: Which primer and finish will you use on each surface of our building, and is that the manufacturer’s specified system?

3. Plan the work around guests and staff

Guests should be able to check in, park and get to their rooms without walking through a work zone. That takes coordination with the hotel’s management before work begins and through every day of the project. We coordinate with property management so tenants, guests and staff know what is happening and when.

For a hotel, the conversations worth having up front are practical ones:

• Which entrances, walkways and parking rows need to stay open at all times.
• Where equipment and materials will be staged, and where crews will park.
• How the main entrance and drive-under canopy will be handled so arrivals are not blocked.
• How the front desk will find out which part of the building is next, so staff can answer guests’ questions.
• What daily cleanup looks like before crews leave the site.

Ask your contractor: How will you keep our entrances, walkways and guest parking open, and how much notice will our front desk get before you move to a new elevation?

4. Reaching the upper floors

On a five-story building, the upper walls, gables and trim have to be reached safely. At the Hilton Garden Inn, the crew used boom lifts. On mid-rise and high-rise buildings, boom lifts and suspended swing stages are the usual methods, and scaffolding is sometimes used.

Whatever the equipment, the area beneath the work should be marked off while crews are overhead, and the hotel team should know where the equipment will be each day.

Ask your contractor: What equipment will you use on our building, and how will you keep guests and staff clear of the area below?

5. If the colors are changing, settle them first

A repaint is the natural time to change a hotel’s colors. The Hilton Garden Inn went from yellow and orange to a white and gray palette, which is a big visual change on a building guests see from the road and the parking lot.

A change that size should be decided before work starts, not on the wall. Get the final colors approved in writing by whoever has to sign off for the property, and make sure the colors are matched to the specified products, not chosen separately from them. Changing direction after the first elevation is painted costs time and leaves the building in two schemes longer than anyone wants.

Ask your contractor: Who needs to approve our colors, and when do you need final approval to keep the schedule?

6. Close out with a walkthrough

Every Bayshore project ends with daily cleanup and a final walkthrough before closeout. On a hotel, that walkthrough should include the hotel’s manager, so touch-ups are found and handled while the crew and materials are still on site, not reported later by a guest.

Hotel exterior repaint checklist for owners and managers

• Walk the building with your contractor and get a clear written scope.
• Ask for the coating system by surface: stucco, block, trim, metal and doors.
• Confirm cleaning, sealant replacement and cosmetic crack repair are in the scope.
• Agree on which entrances, walkways and parking stay open every day.
• Name one contact on each side: your manager and the contractor’s supervisor.
• Get new colors approved in writing before work starts.
• Schedule a final walkthrough with your team before closeout.

For a similar project where the business stays open during the work, see our post on repainting a shopping center in Tampa. You can see more hospitality, retail and office work on our projects page and read how we work with each property type on our industries page and our office, hotel and commercial painting page.

Frequently asked questions

Can a hotel exterior be repainted while the hotel stays open?

Yes. A hotel exterior repaint can be planned around guests and staff by agreeing on work areas, parking, entrances and daily cleanup with the property team before work starts. Bayshore Painters plans hotel repaints this way across Tampa Bay, including the exterior repaint of the Hilton Garden Inn in Oldsmar, FL.

What equipment is used to repaint a five-story hotel?

Boom lifts are a common way to reach the upper floors of a mid-rise hotel. Bayshore Painters used boom lifts to repaint the five-story Hilton Garden Inn in Oldsmar. Suspended swing stages and scaffolding are also used on taller or harder-to-reach buildings.

Should a hotel change its exterior colors during a repaint?

A repaint is the natural time to change colors, as long as the new colors are approved in writing before work starts. At the Hilton Garden Inn in Oldsmar, the exterior went from a yellow and orange scheme to a white and gray palette. The coating system under the color matters just as much as the color itself.

Bayshore Painters repaints hotels, office buildings, retail centers and multifamily properties across Tampa Bay and Central Florida, from Oldsmar and Clearwater to Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Orlando. If your hotel is due for a repaint, request a property assessment and we will walk the building with your team and give you a clear written scope.