Luxury hotel boom: denver and colorado's mountain resorts build to suit upper-upper upscale occupants.

• Author: Caley, Nora

Now that Denver will have a Ritz-Carlton hotel, wealthy travelers might stop in the city on the way to Vail or the Broad-moor in Colorado Springs. At least that's new Rich Grant, spokesperson for the Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau, interprets the conversation he had with Travel & Leisure and other upscale magazines.

"We were doing media calls, and we were talking about the Art Museum and the Ellie Caulkins Opera House," he says. "Then I mentioned we're getting a Ritz-Carlton, and the editor perked up and said, 'Now you're talking.'"

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Eager to attract upscale travelers, Denver is adding luxury hotels. "There are certain people who, when they travel, want to stay at the best hotel in the city," says Mike Cahill, president of hotel consulting firm HREC-Hospitality Real Estate Counselors. "That used to be the Brown Palace."

Not anymore. Cahill notes that when the Hotel Teatro and the Hotel Monaco opened a few years ago, upscale travelers switched to the newer hotels. Soon they will have to choose among more brands.

"We have beautiful boutique hotels, but the Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons will give us something to go after a new type of tourist and new type of meeting that we previously haven't been able to," Grant says.

The NEW HOTELS

In 2004, the J.W. Marriott opened in Cherry Creek North. Its owner is BWAB, a Denver-based oil and gas company whose subsidiaries own The Apartments at Denver Place, the Athletic Club at Denver Place, and other properties. Now BWAB Real Estate Ventures is converting the former downtown Embassy Suites into the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and the Residences at Ritz-Carlton.

"The reason we are developing the Ritz-Carlton is that there is a niche that's not filled in Denver," says Charles Biederman, managing partner of the group. "Once you develop a property in a luxury level that previously did not exist in that particular market, it raises the entire spectrum of hotels across the board. Suddenly you've increased your appeal as a city."

Of the 2,800 Marriott properties worldwide, 20 are J.W. Marriotts, and 61 are Ritz-Carlton. (Most of the others are Marriotts, Courtyards, Renaissances, etc.) The other Ritz-Carlton in Colorado is in Bachelor Gulch, Avon.

BWAB will reportedly spend $75 million to convert the location on 1881 Curtis St. into a Ritz-Carlton. The condos will sell for $800,000 to $4 million. The group has not said how much hotel rooms will cost.

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