AURORA | The long-delayed Aurora Gaylord Rockies Hotel and Conference Center received some good news Thursday — half a billions’ worth of good news.
Ira Mitzner, President & CEO of RIDA Development Corporation, said they have secured $500 million in financing to build the 1,500-room hotel.
“What this tells you is the confidence the lending community has, not only in this project and this location, but in the Rockies, the state of Colorado and the entire western part of the United States,” Mitzner said.
He said that Wells Fargo led a consortium of eight banks from around the world in securing the hefty construction loans for the beleaguered project. He added that similarly structured loans typically have a lifespan of about seven years.
Mitzner named several of the banks Thursday morning involved in financing the project as part of a press conference held with city, RIDA and Marriot officials at the Aurora Muncipal Center. The consortium consists of eight banks total, with seven detailed so far. Mitzner said after the conference he could not name the eighth bank because they did not have a representative at the press conference, which was not the case for the other banks.
Following Wells Fargo as the lead financier, he said Bank of America and Scotia Bank out of Canada would also be providing substantial loans to the project.
Crédit Agricole, MidFirst Bank, Citifinancial and U.S. Bank are also lending smaller amounts to the project.
“This is truly a national and international participation,” Mitzner said. “Our goal is over the next approximately 30 days is to sign a final gross management price contract in excess of $500 million.”
Mitzner said with financing secure, RIDA is now working with construction partner Mortenson to actually build the hotel.
“They are feverishly working through 3,000 plus pages of development plans and information,” he said of Mortenson and their partner company Welbro Building.
Answering questions from the press following the conference, Mitzner said the $300 million more needed to build the hotel for $800 million will come from equity and other sources that include RIDA, their development partner Ares Management and Marriot.
He said the City of Aurora would not be loaning any additional money to the project.
“The city’s obligations have not changed from the beginning,” he said.
Aurora and hotel officials have said once the financing is closed, building will begin in earnest and critics trying to kill the project will have failed.
“Aurora wins. Hoteliers lose,” said Aurora Economic Development Council President Wendy Mitchell in response to continued attempts by Denver hoteliers and statewide critics trying to keep the project from going forward.
Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan said the financing commitment is “absolutely” a guarantee that the hotel will be a reality.
“They are not going to announce a deal unless they’ve got a deal and they are prepared to go forward,” Hogan said Wednesday. “That makes the Gaylord Rockies very, very real.”
Since the project was announced five years ago it has hit several snags, including the original developers dropping out and lawsuits aimed at the taxpayer funding that made up much of the financing.
Hogan said when the original team dropped out, he worried whether the project could go forward.
But since RIDA came on in 2013, Hogan said he has had unwavering confidence — even in the face of lawsuits against the financing plan — that the hotel and conference center would happen.
Mitzner also addressed the issue that for several years, the hotel project has battled numerous lawsuits from a group of mostly-Denver area hoteliers.
“This is not about cutting up a pie, this is about expanding the pie and showing off and bringing economic development,” he said, describing the hotel as the first of its kind to serve large groups in the state that would otherwise go to Orlando, Dallas or Las Vegas.
The hotel plaintiffs have long argued that the massive, western-themed hotel could be built without the $81 million from Regional Tourism Act (RTA) subsidies, and under the state’s rules for the incentives, the subsidies should be taken away.
On Oct. 22, they filed a petition with the Colorado Supreme Court alleging that $81 million in tax subsidies was unfairly awarded to the Aurora Gaylord Rockies Hotel and Conference Center, appealing a lawsuit the hoteliers have lost in state courts before.
The hotels are basing their case on a change in the Gaylord project that occurred in 2012 after the incentive money was awarded. Documents leaked to the media about the change when Marriott International Inc. bought the Gaylord Hotels brand showed the cost of the project had decreased from $824 million to $735 million. In 2013, Marriott then worked out a deal with Houston-based RIDA Development Corp. to take over as the new developer and owner of the project with Marriott as the hotel operator.
Mitzner said after the press conference financing would be secure for Gaylord regardless of the Surpreme Court’s decision.
He said however, the project would not have been able to move forward without the $81 million in tax incentives from the state, which he said gave conservative bank lenders confidence in the project.
Sean Duffy, a spokesman for the group of hotels who have sued to stop the Gaylord project, declined to comment on the development Wednesday.
The 1,500-room Gaylord conference complex will be the largest hotel in the state when completed. According to the AEDC, it will include an indoor/outdoor year-round waterpark with multiple pools and waterslides, including a family play zone, two water slides, a lazy river, and a Colorado ‘hot springs’ experience.
The AEDC estimates the project will create more than 10,000 construction jobs and 1,550 permanent, direct jobs. With 1.9 million square feet on 85 acres, it is expected to attract more than 450,000 net new visitors each year to the state.
— Sentinel reporter Brandon Johansson contributed to this report.
This is great news, I’m glad I live and am part of Aurora.
Why on earth would I want to have my convention in Denver with entertainment, sports, theater, concerts, great restaurants, the nearby mountains and lots more to do when my conventioneers could be out there enjoying the horned toads and tumbleweeds?
Where have you found horned toads in recent years. My children used to bring in horned toads, garter snakes, bull snakes, mice, and other small animals and insects when they attended Wheeling School back in 1963-65. Wife had problem with finding garter snakes in the strawberry patch I planted in back yard. Since I moved back to home after retiring in 1977, I had few years of finding garter snakes, but no bull snakes, or horned toads. I suspected some who moved here, must be eating them. I ask again, how far out on prairie did you have to go, to find them recently.
We even had the mixed canaries and sparrows or colored wrens where birds confused their grouping, but have not seen that in years now.
Pick your wildlife. Glad you agree with me about the hotel boondoggle, though.
Not real sure that is a boon doogle. Like Stateline in Utah-Nevada border, all the folk in Salt Lake and the valley who like to gamble, drive to Stateline and stay in hotels. And there is nothing out there except the casinos, and whatever each has in it. Reason I always tried to plan my driving to get there in mid-week since I was just there for one night, and food prices- hotel prices were reduced. On my military pay, I could not afford them on the weekends, when price went up. Can find the same at state line on I-15 south of Vegas at California border.
Prices are low in Vegas though, compared to motels and hotels in other cities. And no one can knock the food prices in Vegas, or the choices.
I still think someone is eating the wildlife in Aurora, the way squirrels disappear, even stray cats. Know the cougars and bears come down out of the mountain in drought years, driving the predators normally along front range to the east, so we get more foxes, coyotes, owls, skunks, and raccoons in east Aurora. Know cats and small dogs disappear then, but also the birds, squirrels, rabbits, etc. Just asking?
Every Gaylord resort in the country is far removed from the metro area they reside in. And still they bring in large numbers.
Yea, Denver has the Diamond Cabaret and that really skanky strip joint down the street and the lazy teen beggars.
Out here in Aurora, we’re just tumbling along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
And what a view of the mountains from the plains.
In Denver you can just walk to the mountains, right?
If you attend many events held at convention centers across the country, you will soon discover that few are located in ideal places. Denver’s convention center is one that I think is in a good spot. That being said, the Gaylord’s place in Aurora is far better than many I’ve attended and with the proposed amenities seems like a decent experience. In the event one wanted to go away from Gaylord, attractions and restaurants are not very far away.
New Hotel with destination entertainment more interesting than the idea of race cars. Somehow when I drive I-225 often, I am not interested in race cars. Was glad to see the racing in Denver downtown come to end too, other then the police chases. I don’t go down to watch those either, but do see some starts or ending of such on television on news, especially now with legal pot, and emigrants from California on our streets in Aurora too.
The question remains, especially after this announcement of private financing: why does the Gaylord project need state taxpayer funding and Aurora tax rebates? It is obviously seen by the banks to be a profitable investment, so would it not be profitable without the corporate favoritism attached by AEDC and the Council?