Windows on the Way for Westin

April 24,2009

The windows are coming for Downtown Atlanta’s Westin Peachtree Plaza, but they’re not here yet. Every piece of glass on the exterior of the landmark circular hotel on Peachtree Street will have to be replaced, due to the tornado of March 2008. The project is expected to begin in June or July and take at least a year to complete, said hotel general manager Ed Walls on Thursday.

So why has it taken so long?“The windows were 35 years old, and it’s tough to match them,” Walls said. The hotel lost 81 custom-made window panes in the tornado. And those original windows aren’t made any more. Even if the original windows were still manufactured, they no longer meet the city’s code standards, Walls said. The top priorities for giving the 73-story hotel its new “skin” have included safety and code guidelines. But that’s not all. “We want to make the place look good,” Walls said.