Brown Palace Hotel room revitalization spurred bydowntown competition

The Brown Palace Hotel has a guest register like no other.

The grand dame of Denver luxury hotels has welcomed every president since Teddy Roosevelt --Calvin Coolidge excluded. Musicians such as Bruce Springsteen and Tony Bennett, Taylor Swift andSnoop Dogg have holed up in its 241 rooms.

In the grand lobby, families sit and sip afternoon tea, making a pilgrimage to see the dazzlingholiday decorations and the National Western Stock Show's prized grand champion steer.

With its latest $10.5 million renovation, though, hotel officials are targeting a new group of guests,with an eye toward staying relevant in the increasingly competitive hotel market.

They're going modern -- as modern as a 123-year-old hotel can -- with a top-to-bottom guest-roommakeover, exterior restoration and new meeting space.

"We do really, really well with my generation, with Baby Boomers. We do a lot during Monday toThursday, the business travelers," sales and marketing director Mark Shine said. "But the youngerdemographics are traveling, too, and there are other hotels in the market they're using. They're whowe need to appeal to."

The competition should only get steeper in the next two years: By the end of 2017, new hotelconstruction should take the downtown market over the 10,000-room threshold for the first time.

"Denver is really having a hotel renaissance," said Rich Grant, who retired last year after 35 years aschief cheerleader and communications director for Visit Denver. "Denver is now the destination."

According to the Rocky Mountain Lodging Report, which tracks the local hotel industry, there areroughly 8,500 hotel rooms downtown today, not including the 165-room Art Hotel on Broadway thatopened near the Denver Art Museum last month.

In the past year, three other hotels have opened: the 112-room Crawford Hotel at Union Station, the

140-room Aloft on 15th Street and the 230-room Renaissance Downtown Denver on 17th Street.

The Brown Palace Hotel has been undergoing giant renovations. A newly done bathroom in a guestroom on the 7th floor at the hotel on Tuesday July 14, 2015. The hotel will celebrate it's 123rdbirthday this coming August. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

At least five more are under construction or in final planning stages, and all are expected to comeonline by the end of 2017.

White Lodging is building a 361-room Hyatt Place/Hyatt House Hotel opening in November at 14thand Glenarm streets and plans to break ground later this summer on another dual-branded property,a 491-room Le Meridian/AC Hotel at 15th and California streets.

Denver-based Sage Hospitality, owner of the Crawford, is doing another 170-room independenthotel, set to open in late 2016, as part of the Z Block redevelopment in Lower Downtown.

Kimpton is working on a 200-room hotel at 16th and Wewatta streets, and Hotel Indigo hasannounced plans to build its first property in Colorado, with 180 rooms at 18th and Wewatta streets.

"It's all about demand"

"It's all about demand," said Robert Benton, a hotel industry analyst based in Parker.

The Brown Palace Hotel has been undergoing giant renovations. A newly done guest room on theseventh floor at the hotel on Tuesday July 14, 2015. The hotel will celebrate it's 123rd birthday thiscoming August. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

Metrowide, the Denver area ended 2014 with its highest annual occupancy rates since at least the1980s, at 75.8 percent, Benton said.

Downtown hotels clocked in at 78.2 percent for the year, with an average daily rate of $171.86, an 8percent jump from 2013, according to the Rocky Mountain Lodging Report.

The national average was 64.4 percent and $115, Benton said.

"In Denver, when we're getting into the upper 60s and lower 70s, the market is considered to bestrong," Benton said.

While the number of hotels being built is high, the number of rooms in each hotel is lower than inthe past, Benton said.

"We're seeing more hotels, but we're seeing smaller hotels coming online, more boutique oriented,more upscale hotels," Benton said. "Those hotels, they're not necessarily oriented toward groups andconventions."

The smaller injections should make it easier for the market to absorb the new rooms without pushingoccupancy rates too low, said Michael Everett, chief investment officer of Sage Hospitality, whichoperates more than 60 hotels across the U.S., including the Oxford, Curtis and Courtyard byMarriott downtown.

"We don't have 1,000 rooms here, 1,000 rooms there. It's more targeted," Everett said. "If you justtake Lower Downtown Denver, the new office space that's being built, the Hines project, our project,the various office buildings developed around Union Station, we think the new supply can certainlybe absorbed."

Sage's newest downtown property, the Crawford, opened inside Union Station last summer, its 112Art Deco, Victorian and loft-inspired rooms sharing a lobby with the train station's Great Hall.

Their next project, the 170-room Z Block hotel at 19th and Wazee streets, will be more modern andtargeted at a slightly younger clientele, Everett said.

"The overall supply growth in Denver, to us, is not terribly concerning when you compare it to placeslike Austin or Nashville," Everett said. "We have a fraction of the hotel development."

The fact that more and more people are coming to Denver for leisure is starting to be reflected inhotels under construction, Benton said. Many are near the social areas of downtown, such as LoDo,rather than the convention center.

"We have a lot more people who want to spend time in Denver," Benton said. "They don't want to becaught up in the convention atmosphere."

Denver does best when it's able to attract business, leisure and convention travelers, Visit DenverCEO Richard Scharf said.

"More downtown hotels equate to more brand, pricing and amenity options for visitors and enhancesour ability to sustain Denver's reputation as a premier destination for business and leisuretravelers," Scharf said.

Modern revival

At the Brown Palace, you won't find any doilies or heavy floral prints in the renovated guest rooms.

Dark curtains have been replaced with lighter, more airy window coverings, and sandstone, topaz,cream and sapphire colors, all drawn from the hotel's historic architecture, dominate the palette.Personal reading lights, flat-screen televisions, iPod docks and device charging stations can be foundin every room.

"We wanted to get away from dark and historic-looking to a more modern atmosphere that can reallyappeal to everyone," Shine said.

"What we found is (people say), 'We used to go there with my grandmother for tea or we'd go getseafood chowder in the Palace Arms before we went holiday shopping,' " he said. "We're trying to letpeople know it's more than what you remember as a kid."

As part of the $10.5 million project, the hotel is adding 3,500 square feet of meeting facilities on themezzanine level, converting the hotel offices into a modern space to meet the needs of eventplanners.

The restoration of the hotel's iconic sandstone exterior, the final piece of the project, should be doneby November, Shine said.

Across the second-floor walkway, the rebranded Holiday Inn Express has undergone a majoroverhaul of its own. This past winter and spring, owners invested $11 million into the Brown Palace'ssister hotel, completely redoing the lobby, corridors, fitness center and 231 guest rooms.

"We have a thriving downtown," Shine said. "The business outlook is awesome."

Emilie Rusch: 303-954-2457, erusch@denverpost.com or twitter.com/emilierusch

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