Continuum tees up $98M hotel, office project near Union Station
The Denver Post – By Howard Pankratz
Add a 12-story Kimpton hotel and a five-story office building to the mix of new development near Denver Union Station.
Denver-based Continuum Partners on Wednesday said it plans a $98 million mixed-use project at 16th and Wewatta streets that will include the hotel, office building and underground parking for 200 vehicles. The company expects to break ground in June and be done with the project by November 2015.
The hotel will have two front doors — one on 16th Street and the other on the commuter-train platform at Union Station, Continuum’s development director Frank Cannon said in an interview.
“As you walk off the train, it is the first building you will see,” Cannon said. “You will be able to walk right from the train to the lobby of the hotel.”
Cannon said the 200-room hotel will include 8,300-square- feet of meeting space, street-level and rooftop patios and room for two local restaurants. He said 100 spots in the parking garage will be public.
The office building is scaled to allow smaller tenants to lease an entire floor, about 12,300-square feet.
“It is really a unique opportunity for that smaller tenant to really have a strong presence in a burgeoning, up-and-coming neighborhood,” Cannon said.
The size and location may have strong appeal among so-called Millennial entrepreneurs and their employees. Gunner Branson, chief executive of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Managers, said during the Rocky Mountain City Summit Tuesday that this young workforce values high-density neighborhoods with easy access to transit (many do not drive). He also said their full embrace of technology has reduced demand for vast office spaces.
Continuum Partners is a partner in Union Station Neighborhood Co., the master developers of Union Station.
The announcement comes three weeks after Continuum said it had paid $30 million for the University of Colorado’s former Health Sciences Center at Ninth Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. Continuum, led by CEO and founder Mark Falcone, plans to redevelop the nearly 26-acre campus into a pedestrian-scaled mixed-use neighborhood that includes apartments, condos and townhouses.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939, hpankratz@denverpost.com or twitter.com/howardpankratz