Deepak Chopra is opening a spa in Westminster.
The 17,000-square-foot Rocky Mountain Chopra Center & Spa will be part of Ananda, a $40 million residential and retail development that will include 60 condominiums adjacent to the Westin Westminster Hotel & Conference Center.
“We went out looking for an amenity for the hotel, but I think the hotel is going to be an amenity for the Chopra Center,” said Tim O’Byrne, who is developing the project. “They are truly a destination attraction. People go there just for their services.”
Chopra is scheduled to be onsite Thursday to unveil the project.
The inspirational author’s first center, the Chopra Center for Wellbeing on the grounds of La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif., was the first wellness center in North America to integrate modern Western medicine with Ayurveda, the 5,000-year- old healing tradition of India.
The center provides medical consultations, Ayurvedic body treatments and therapies and health-enhancing workshops.
The condos will range in size from a 600-square-foot studio, starting at $200,000, to 4,000- square-foot, three-bedroom pent house units at more than $1 million.
Oz Architecture of Boulder is the architect on the project.
Condo owners will be able to take advantage of hotel services such as room service, maid service and dry cleaning.
O’Byrne said he already has debt and equity in place for the project. He declined to name the local bank that is handling the debt. Investors that have been involved in O’Byrne’s previous projects are investing in Ananda.
The spa could improve occupancy and increase room rates for other hotels along the U.S. 36 corridor, which were hard hit by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and by the tech bust.
The area is home to such high-tech companies as Sun Microsystems, Lucent Technologies and Ball Corp.
In the last year, occupancy and room rates have increased at hotels along the corridor, but there is still room for improvement, said Bob Benton of the hotel consulting firm Robert S. Benton & Associates.
Through August, occupancy is 66.6 percent with average room rates at $93.71. That’s up from occupancy of 63.4 percent and an average room rate of $85.69 for the same period last year.
In addition to the Westin, hotels in the market include the Omni Interlocken, a Doubletree and SpringHill Suites by Marriott.
“This is a good long-term market,” Benton said. “There aren’t a lot of good hotels up there along that stretch. A lot of developers would like to get into that market, but there aren’t that many good sites.”
Staff writer Margaret Jackson can be reached at 303-820-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com.
