High-rise hotel planned for Colorado Springs
An addition to the downtown skyline of Colorado Springs is in the works.
Sources confirm that New Vision Hotels, based in the city, intends to build a 10-story hotel containing 165 rooms.
“It’s a good environment for hotel development,” said Bob Cope, the city’s economic development manager. “Demand is high and interest rates are low. Our tourism numbers are at record high levels and hotel occupancy rates are very strong. We break ground on the Olympic Museum this year. Downtown is getting closer to where we want it to be.”
Donna Quinones visited downtown Wednesday for the first time after moving from Tampa, Florida.
“I’m very impressed here,” she said. “I like the stores and shops. I like the older feel. I think a high-rise hotel can be successful if they give it that same look to fit in with the rest of downtown.”
Andy Schlesinger owns Bella’s Bakery and Bistro behind the proposed hotel location and said he’s excited about the possibilities for more business.
“There will be construction workers and hotel guests,” he said. “I’m a little worried that rents will go up with success from the hotel. But I’ll deal with it, if it means better business and more customers.”
The project will be at the southeast corner of Bijou Street and Cascade Avenue, a site currently occupied by a vacant bank building that will be demolished.
Construction could begin this fall and be finished in a year.
The hotel would include a restaurant, meeting space and retail space and be affiliated with an undisclosed national hotel chain.
No cost figures are available for the project.
The high-rise project is believed to be the first of its kind in the city since the 13-story Plaza of the Rockies south tower was built in 2001 and the first downtown hotel built since 1972.
The 24-story Cooper Tower project, approved in 2008 and to be located at the corner of Nevada Avenue and Kiowa Street, was never built after the developer went bankrupt.
The city’s tallest building is the 15-story downtown Wells Fargo Tower which opened in 1990.
Ryan Tefertiller, the city’s urban planning manager, said that since 2009, building heights have been limited to 10 stories throughout most of downtown, and the proposed hotel site is zoned for 10-story and mixed use development.
“The tallest building that’s been proposed and built downtown since 2009 is a three-story building,” he said. “I think the market supports taller than three stories. But if you get into the 10, 15 or even 20 stories, then it gets a lot more complicated as far as cost of construction, land values and leases or rents for that space.”
New Vision, which already owns four hotels in Colorado Springs, applied for a development permit last week and is waiting for the city to review it — a process expected to take three weeks.
Financing for the project is in place, a New Vision spokesman said Tuesday.
New Vision paid slightly more than $1 million for the bank property.
The hotel announcement comes during national Travel and Tourism Week and two months after Livability.com ranked the city as the ninth-best downtown in the country.
