AURORA | A new developer will take on the floundering, $800 million Western-themed hotel and conference center at the edge of Aurora, and be ready to open its doors in 2017, Aurora economic officials said May 9. The announcement was made at a meeting of the Colorado Economic Development Commission.
Marriott International Inc., the company that bought the Gaylord Hotels brand in May 2012, will operate the hotel, and the project will be developed and owned by Houston-based RIDA Development Corp. and financed by AREA Property Partners. Construction is expected to begin later next year or in early 2015, and the 1,500-room hotel is slated to open during the second half of 2017.
About 12,000 construction jobs will be created during the course of construction and 2,500 permanent jobs will be created when construction is complete.
Lee Neibart, a partner at New-York based AREA Property Partners, said the firm is interested in financing the project because of the high demand for that type of project.
“We’ve done an awful lot of studying and homework,” Neibart said. “Denver is a dynamic market. The West is really starved for product like this and we think this will fill a tremendous need.”
Both RIDA and AREA have already invested money to take over the development of the project, said Wendy Mitchell, president of the Aurora Economic Development Council. She declined to comment on how much money they’ve already spent.
Mitchell said there’s still a lot of work to be done. The firms will put together a financing plan to bring back to the Colorado Economic Development Commission by August. Then, Mitchell said detailed architectural drawings and engineering and construction plans will have to be drafted for the 1.9 million-square-foot project, which will be nearly twice the size of the Town Center at Aurora.
Barring unforeseen economic disasters, Mitchell said she’s confident that both firms will build-out the project by 2017.
“There’s only a few folks that do really large-scale hotel conference center projects,” she said. “There’s even a smaller amount of people that are credible and really highly successful … if anyone can build this project, they can.”
Other hotels owned and developed by RIDA, which was founded in 1972, include the $250 million Omni Resort in Florida and the $400 million Hilton Orlando hotel. RIDA also recently finalized plans for a $335 million hotel and conference center in downtown Houston, which will also be operated by Marriott, according to the Houston Business Journal.
The Gaylord hotel will still be built out in the style of a Rocky Mountain “retreat,” said Ira Mitzner, CEO of RIDA Development Corp. and the cost to build the hotel will still be about $800 million, he said. The hotel will feature 400,000 square-feet of conference space, and the large spaces will be similar in size and scope to the four other Gaylord branded hotels, Mitzner said.
“The Gaylord customer in the Western part of the United States loves the idea that they don’t have to go to DC or Orlando, but they can bring their folks to Denver,” he said.
In May 2012, the Colorado Economic Development Commission approved a tax incentive package for the project worth $81.4 million over 30 years. Aurora had until 2017 to negotiate final plans for the project, under law.
Aurora City Council members also agreed to give the project up to $300 million in tax incentives.
Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan said plans for the project hit a major obstacle when Gaylord changed its corporate structure, but that didn’t change his hopes for the future of the project.
“There was always the feeling that this was a very legitimate project, so we didn’t just let it go,” Hogan said. “But we did demand from Marriott that when they came in that if they were going to do it, they were going to do it right and bring in the right people. We’re very comfortable that they did it right and brought in the right people.”