Plans for a $172 million conference center hotel at High Point were unveiled Thursday at a luncheon hosted by the Aurora Economic Development Council.
The Highpointe Conference Resort will include 505 hotel rooms, 68,000 square feet of meeting and event space and a 22,000-square-foot spa and fitness center. It will be about a mile east of Tower Road between 67th and 68th avenues.
The conference center will be built and operated by Gene Keluche, chairman and chief executive of Highpointe Conference Center Resort LLC. Previously, Keluche founded International Conference Resorts Inc., a company with annual revenue of more than $100 million that he sold in 2001.
Financing for the project, expected to be finished by September 2008, will be provided through Trefethen Capital Markets LLC and US Investment Capital LLC.
High Point is an 1,800-acre master-planned community about 6 miles from Denver International Airport. It will include an 800-acre corporate park, 500,000 square feet of retail, an 18-hole championship public golf course, 1,600 single-family homes and 1,400 multifamily residences. It’s expected to create more than 580 jobs in Aurora.
The project got more financial muscle behind it in May, when Miami-based LNR Property Corp. purchased the site from Landmark Properties Group, the Denver firm headed by Ray Pittman. Pittman is still leading the project as senior vice president of LNR, which has $4 billion in assets. High Point is LNR’s first major investment in Colorado.
Pittman has been lobbying for a commuter-rail stop within the development but says he’s pushing forward with the project while he’s waiting for a decision.
“We’re proceeding on marketing office sites and working on a retail center,” he said.
Staff writer Margaret Jackson can be reached at 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com.
