AURORA | State lawmakers are threatening to introduce a late-status bill that seeks to nuke Aurora’s Gaylord hotel tourism project and local officials say the move is sniping politics and hypocrisy at its worst.
“Anything that comes from the Legislature is three years too late and totally goes against the result of dozens of public meetings and public votes,” said Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan. “This is all because of a couple of hotel owners in Denver who themselves have been the recipients of huge incentive programs and just don’t want competition in Aurora. End of story.”
State legislative sources confirmed that a bill could address how projects are funded by the Colorado Regional Tourism Act. That program seeks to provide incentives to large, unusual tourism projects that draw large numbers of tourists to the state.
Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan said he and state Rep. Su Ryden, D-Aurora, met with state House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Boulder, on Wednesday. Hullinghurst said there was lots of talk of a such a bill, but nothing had yet surfaced. Hogan said Hullinghurst agreed that a bill retroactively addressing RTA projects would be unfair and unwise.
Hullinghorst was not available for comment, and copies of a draft bill were not available.
After a long and controversial statewide competition, Aurora in 2012 won about $80 million in future state tax incentives for developers to build and operate a massive Gaylord hotel and convention center near Denver International Airport. Competing businesses and governments across the state have been critical of the project since then, trying numerous ways to undo it. Aspects of the project have been contested in appeals committees and court, and in almost every instance, Aurora and the Gaylord project have prevailed.
As city economic development officials have made it clear that developers are now close to breaking ground on the delayed project, a new swell of potential roadblocks has arisen.
State Senate Minority Leader Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, said she has long been critical of large incentive programs like the Colorado Regional Tourism Act, calling them “corporate welfare.” But she said a prospective RTA bill and other recent attempts to scuttle the Gaylord project are nothing but unfair, petty politics targeting a project that has been legally upheld numerous times.
“There’s nothing fair about this,” Carroll said. “It’s perfectly clear what this is really all about.”
Hogan said the legislation is misguided, but he welcomes the opportunity to correct what he says is the erroneous explanation about the incentives.
“The opponents continue to misstate the facts that there is no upfront incentives to developers for this project,”Hogan said. “If there is no project built and successfully operated, there is no incentive. And by allowing competitors to end the Gaylord project, (state lawmakers) would be turning away 500,000 new tourist visits to Colorado and billions of tourist dollars over several years.”
Besides the legislative maneuver aimed at stopping Aurora from building the Gaylord Hotel, an unlikely state official has also jumped into the fray: state Treasurer Walker Stapleton. Stapleton, whose elected role in state government is to guide and monitor state tax investments and oversee the state’s public employee pension program, suddenly inserted himself into the tourism project a few weeks ago, asking questions to developers.
Ira Mitzner, CEO of RIDA Development Corp., the Houston-based developer who will build the Gaylord hotel, sent a fiery response to Stapleton on Tuesday, defending state incentives awarded to project.
“Certainly, politicians like yourself may have legitimate differences about the desirability of economic development incentives,” Mitzner wrote in a letter to Stapleton, “but second guessing a project which the (Colorado Economic Development) Commission lawfully approved almost three years ago, raises more questions about the State of Colorado, its process, stability and reliability than about the project itself.”
In a letter sent to Mitzner on Feb. 20, Stapleton questioned the validity of $81 million pledged to the project under the Regional Tourism Act because it changed substantially since the incentives were awarded in 2012.
In May 2012, the Colorado Economic Development Commission approved a tax incentive package for the project worth $81.4 million over 30 years. Weeks after the Colorado Economic Development Commission awarded the project state tax incentives, Marriott International Inc., bought the Gaylord Hotels brand and took over the project. Then in 2013, RIDA took ownership of the $850 million Western-themed hotel and conference center with Marriott maintaining a role as the hotel’s operator.
In the letter, Stapleton asked whether RIDA needed the subsidy to finance the project and whether RIDA had submitted the necessary financial documents to show the project meets state requirements for the money. He also asked for an update on the hotel’s progress.
“Commencement of substantial work, as defined by Colorado state law, began in 2014 when we hired the project architect to produce construction documents,” Mitzner said. Mitzner said in the letter construction of the hotel will start this year with the aim for it to be completed by 2018. Aurora has until 2017 to negotiate final plans for the project, under state law.
“Without the agreed upon and vested support, this project would not be built in Colorado,” he said.
Stapleton sent similar letters to Hogan and Fiona Arnold, executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, in February, following an Adams County district court ruling that said Aurora held an invalid election to create a special tax district around the future hotel project.
Arnold stated in her letter to Stapleton that she would provide him with quarterly reports on the hotel’s project as required under the RTA award that he could review if requested.
Hogan and Mitzner both asked whether it should be Stapleton’s role as treasurer to interfere with projects like Gaylord.
Michael Fortney, a spokesman for Stapleton, responded separately from the letters as to Stapleton’s role in the issue.
“This is $80 million of taxpayers’ money we want to make sure is being properly utilized,” he said.
On Tuesday, Stapleton also sent a letter to the state Legislative Audit Committee, asking the committee to investigate the subsidies, citing the Adams County ruling and ongoing media attention surrounding the massive project.
According to the Aurora Economic Development Council, the 1,500-room hotel near Denver International Airport will create 2,500 jobs and bring 450,000 new visitors to Colorado each year. The project is estimated to cost $850 million to complete, according to AEDC.
If it isn’t one thing, its another with these people. Yes, this is corporate welfare, however, it is also “politics at its finest”. Again, in my prior post on this issue, if my tax dollars are being used to better my city, then I am all for it. Very much like social welfare; if there are those in need for rent, food, and groceries then I am all for it. This is our city and these old ‘native farts’ are making it lag for both everyday living and future expansion to be something bigger. COMPETITION! COMPETITION! COMPETITION! Aurora needs more entertainment, night life, and its residents to get on board!
I totally agree. This is the most boring bedroom community I’ve ever seen or lived in. When we want to go to a good restaurant, it ain’t in Aurora. Cultural opportunities? Into the car to go to some other community around here. Strip malls aren’t my idea of a ‘happening place’. And then there’s Regatta Plaza. It only took about twenty years to attract some attention to this blighted area. Hopefully it won’t take another twenty to get it scraped and redeveloped. Aurora is a bad joke around the area. It would be nice if we had some leadership at the city government level.
Or leadership at the community and resident level, without the city government acting as the only place for invention and innovation. Get the government out of the way and allow people to take responsibility and succeed.
The mayor is right on target. Other hoteliers from downtown Denver and other places are objecting to what they see as unwanted competition by the Gaylord. No doubt that many of them received tax incentives as well.They are now attempting to use political connections to scuttle the Gaylord project. I’d be interested to see who has donated to who during political campaigns.