The Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center has booked $100 million in business through 2012, the most of any of the chain’s hotels in preopening sales, according to the president of the Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau.
That money will flow through Denver’s economy, but some of it also will go toward making the new hotel’s annual bond payments: Those payments are $17.1 million this year, rising to $21.8 million in 2012 and continuing for years after that.
The $285 million city-built hotel will add 1,100 rooms to Denver’s hotel market when it opens Dec. 20.
That gives Denver a boost in attracting larger conventions to the city, such as the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association, which has committed to holding its convention here for the next three years, convention bureau president Rich ard Scharf said.
About 30,000 people attended CEDIA’s last convention in Indianapolis, a city whose facilities it has outgrown.
“The Hyatt is a demand generator bringing in business we would not normally get,” Scharf told 200 people Thursday at a Downtown Denver Partnership presentation at the Magnolia Ballroom.
Cities doing best in the convention industry are investing in city centers, Scharf said, citing a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey. With lodging-tax receipts up 18 percent, it appears Denver is doing a good job, he said.
Over the last 15 years, $7.6 billion has been invested in the city, with about 30 percent of the money put into entertainment venues and attractions, said another presenter, Marilee Utter, president of Citiventure Associates.
Great cities, Utter said, are built on a foundation of affordable housing. They are walkable and have good parks and transit systems. Some even require family amenities such as playgrounds, pools and wider sidewalks in developments.
Staff writer Margaret Jackson can be reached at 303-820-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com.
