The father-and-son development team, which is planning a $217million, 1,100-room Marriott Hotel across from an expanded ColoradoConvention Center, has until Sept. 15 to secure a letter of intentfrom a hotel operator that is acceptable to the city. The Bergershave until Jan. 15, 2001, to secure a final and binding managementcontract with the hotel and until March 15 to close on a financingpackage.

The city can impose such demands because the Bergers willreceive a $55 million subsidy in the form of a tax-incrementfinancing package from the Denver Urban Renewal Authority. WhenDenver residents approved a $267 million plan last November todouble the size of the convention center, city leaders alsopromised a new hotel would accompany the new convention center.

Mayor Wellington Webb says he now favors building a new hotel ontop of the new convention center instead of on Bergers' tract at15th and California Sts., site of the former Denver Post building.Building a hotel on top of the convention center is not onlyextremely expensive, but may not be structurally possible,according to Bruce Berger.