Robins & Morton caught the Auburn spirit this week when it celebrated the topping out of the Graduate Auburn hotel.

During the ceremony to celebrate installing the final steel beam, signifying the structural completion of the project, the Birmingham construction firm hosted a raptor demonstration featuring, of course, a golden eagle.

“Auburn is truly one of the most welcoming, special places I’ve ever been,” Robins & Morton Commercial Division Manager David Green said. “In and of itself, it’s an amazing city with fantastic amenities. This hotel is going to be a statement property where locals and visitors will gather and enjoy the celebration of Auburn hospitality and culture.”

The five-story, 177-room, nearly 140,000-square-foot hotel has direct views of Auburn’s campus and Toomer’s Corner. It will feature an indoor-outdoor rooftop bar, a ground-floor café, and meeting and banquet space.

The Auburn University Raptor Center – an educational and rehabilitation program that has treated and released thousands of birds of prey back into the wild – performed a demonstration flight and education session for attendees at the ceremony.

The property is the newest in the Graduate Hotels collection, which includes more than 30 locations in cities and college towns across the United States and United Kingdom. Their designs are inspired by local culture, history, and collegiate nostalgia.

The project is scheduled for completion this fall. Robins & Morton is the general contractor, and Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture is the architect.