Lennar Unveils $110-Mil Hotel Renovation Plan

DENVER-Lennar Partners publicly unveiled details of its proposed $110-million renovation of the Executive Tower Inn hotel in the Central Business District into a luxury hotel and 130 condominium units. The Denver Urban Renewal Authority is expected to approve a subsidy for the project from $17.7 million to $20 million later this month, says Tracy Huggins, executive director of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority.

The DURA tax increment-financing package then needs to be approved by the city council. If all goes well, Mayor Wellington Webb would sign the deal on Nov. 23, she says.

The plans call for 321 first-class rooms, about 16 fewer than it has today, Bill Smith, a vice president at Lennar.

”So we won’t be adding any hotel rooms to the market,” Smith told city council members at a special projects meeting. ”But the rooms we have are substandard, and we’d be bringing them up to a very high standard.”

The new project also will include about 130 condominiums. Ten percent of those would be sold as affordable for buyers who earn up to 80% of the area’s median income.

The exterior skin will be completely removed and replaced with a ”Class A” exterior skin. The architectural design will emphasize the vertical column lines similar to the historic U S West building across the street. RNL Design of Denver, the largest architectural firm in the Rocky Mountain region, is the architect on the project.

Once the project is fully designed, it will take about 18 to 22 months to build.

It is scheduled to open in late 2004.

The hotel will remain as the only union hotel in Downtown Denver, says Walt Isenberg of Denver-based Sage Hospitality, which manages the hotel.