Swinerton Celebrates 75 Years In Denver In Hotel It Just Finished
Swinerton Builders celebrated 75 years in Denver on the rooftop deck of the dual-branded hotel it completed just weeks ago for Marriott International Inc.
Le Meridien and AC Hotel by Marriott opened with 70% occupancy at 750 15th St. near the Colorado Convention Center. The 272-room Le Meridien Denver Downtown and the 223-room AC Hotel by Marriott are owned and managed by White Lodging Services Corp.
The AC Hotel is the brand’s first property in Colorado. It has indoor and outdoor settings, a fitness center and a ballroom for up to 630 people. Le Meridien has a fitness center, rooftop bar, 24-hour business center and in-room dining. It has more than 12K SF of event space, including a 5,700 SF ballroom, as well as meeting rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows.
It is the second dual-branded hotel Swinerton has built in recent years. In 2014, the company built the 21-story Hyatt hotel at 14th and Glenarm Place. The dual brand features both Hyatt Place, a select service hotel, and Hyatt House, an extended-stay product. Like Le Meridien and AC, each brand has its own entrance, lobby, restaurant and lounge area.
According to the Downtown Denver Partnership’s 2017 State of Downtown Denver report, the city hosted an all-time high of 16.4 million overnight visitors who spent $5B in 2016. Downtown’s 35 hotels with 9,500 rooms and more than 500K SF of meeting space have seen strong growth, with revenue per available room up 26%, average daily room rate up 20% and occupancy up 5% over the past five years.
In 2016 and early 2017, 350 new hotel rooms were added downtown. As of mid-2017, there were projects under construction that will add another 1,181 hotel rooms.
Throughout its 75-year history in Denver, Swinerton has helped shape the city’s skyline. The employee-owned company has built office buildings, multifamily, higher education facilities, hotels and parking structures.
Its projects include the original construction of the Denver Coliseum, the Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences and the Regional Transportation District’s West Corridor expansion. It recently turned over the first building in the Broe Group’s 32-story Country Club Towers project and will turn over the second building on Nov. 1. Altogether, Country Club Towers has 558 apartments and 985 parking spaces, including three stories of below-grade parking.
Swinerton Colorado Division Manager Tim Kretzschmar said the company has been busy since he took the helm in August 2016.
“We had six projects get TCOs (temporary certificates of occupancy) this summer,” he said. “We had a very successful summer. We are looking forward to new work coming this fall.”
Projects Swinerton is starting this fall are a corporate campus for the plumbing materials manufacturer Viega, a corporate campus for private market investment manager Partners Group and the Cook Medical Building in Cherry Creek.
Kretzschmar said the mix of work is changing from residential and hospitality to projects for the city such as the National Western Complex and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
“There’s such a strong backlog in Denver, that if residential pauses, the industry will still keep going strong,” he said.
