Hotel construction boom continues in Colorado Springs

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - As the Colorado Springs-area tourism industry continues to grow, so does the construction of new hotels.

At least three hotels are under construction or proposed for downtown.

KRDO NewsChannel 13 has learned the latest plan is to build a 120-room Hyatt Place hotel at the southeast corner of Nevada Avenue and Kiowa Street, between City Hall and the City Auditorium.  It will be built by AAA Hotel Developers, a Pueblo firm, and be part of an Urban Renewal project for that block.

Also in the works is a 252-room Marriott Springhill Hotel at the intersection of Tejon and Costilla streets.  A Colorado Springs development team is working on that project and is also seeking Urban Renewal status to lower the cost.

Already under construction is a 167-room Hilton Garden Inn at the corner of Bijou Street and Cascade Avenue, to be developed and owned by New Vision Hotels of Colorado Springs and scheduled to open in December.

Across the city, a dozen other hotels have opened, are under construction or are being planned.

"We began seeing more interest from hotels when the Olympic Museum project began," said Susan Edmondson, of the Downtown Partnership. 

"What people don't realize is that downtown was underserved by hotels for a long time.  We hadn't had many new hotels there.  But that's changing.  We're now on pace to double the number of hotel rooms downtown."

The hotel building boom began well before this week's announcement of plans to build two new sports venues downtown.

Tammy Fields, of the Chamber of Commerce, said it's not just tourists driving the demand for hotel rooms, and hotels are popping up around the city, not just downtown.

"More businesses are moving downtown, and those businesses would like to have places for their visitors, their guests to be able to stay when they come to visit them for meetings," she said."

Doug Price, of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the new hotel activity is forcing many existing hotels to renovate and improve to stay competitive.

"I see two opportunities here," he said.  "The new hotels will create hundreds of jobs, and we need local schools and colleges to offer more programs to train people in the hotel industry.  Look at The Broadmoor, which brings a lot of workers from other countries."

Price also believes the city should take advantage of the increase in hotel business to raise the lodging tax.

"It's been 2 percent for a long time," he said.  "Denver's is 10 percent.  I'd like to see us get to around 5 percent.  It would allow us to generate the revenue we need to do more tourism promotion.  Nearly half of our visitors stay for one night, and aren't aware of everything our area has to offer.  More promotion means more people staying longer and spending more money."

A hotel is currently under construction in Woodland Park, and several hotels are planned by the casinos in Cripple Creek.

Source:  krdo.com