AURORA, Colo.—It’s been said that the Chairman of the Board himself, Frank Sinatra, once spent a night at the Riviera Hotel.
It happened sometime in the late 1950s, or maybe the 1960s, back when the hotel was a Best Western and one of the nicest establishments along the stretch of Colfax Avenue in Aurora known for hotels.
Sinatra was passing through Denver on his way west from Kansas when he stopped for a night before continuing on his way the next day, the story goes.
“That’s what I heard,” said Gene Kang, owner of the Riviera, with a laugh. “But I never witnessed it.”
Whether the tale about Sinatra is true or not, it says something about how much things have changed for the motels along Colfax in Aurora.
In their heyday, before Interstate 70 stole away the traffic in the 1960s, it wasn’t a shock to see a big name pull into one of the more than 25 motels that dotted Colfax.
Those glory days are long gone, as are most of the old motels such as the Thunderbird, the Bel-Aire, the Dunes and the Cactus.
Today, the motels that remain are seedier than they once were. Often, they’re havens for drug users, prostitutes, the homeless and assorted criminals. They’re also home to several impoverished families, offering the only housing some can afford.
But even if Colfax’s motel scene will likely never be what it was in the 1950s and 1960s, it is changing.
Earlier this month, the posh, new Springhill Suites by Marriott opened at 13400 E. Colfax Ave. The new hotel, which sits across Colfax from The Children’s Hospital, is the first new Colfax hotel or motel in decades.
Even with the shiny new hotel open for business, folks at the remaining motels on Colfax say they don’t expect SpringHill or any other developments in the future to put a dent in their business.
May Aguon, assistant manager at the King’s Inn Motor Hotel, said her motel near Colfax and Oswego Street is so different from SpringHill, the new hotel’s arrival won’t change things.
A night in a room at the King’s Inn, for example, goes for about $35. Rooms at SpringHill are often more than $120 per night.
“A lot of people don’t have 100-some dollars for a night, especially low-income families,” Aguon said.
Hotels along Colfax like the King’s Inn are known as much for their warts—crime, seedy characters and dingy aesthetics—as they are for their reasonable rates.
Back at the Riviera, Kang said he sees a interesting mix of customers on a daily basis, including some who he knows are up to no good.
“We see them all: The good, the bad and the uglies,” Kang said.
But mixed in with some of the more-colorful customers, Kang said, are families who just need a temporary place to stay, like those looking for an apartment.
Star Brown, the desk clerk at King’s Inn, said despite their reputation, the motels along Colfax are important for the neighborhood.
“They serve a purpose,” she said. “If there were no motels, a lot of people would have nowhere to go.”
Still, the differences between the new hotel and the remaining motels from Colfax’s heyday are stark. At SpringHill, visitors are greeted by a sharply dressed staff in a swank lobby adorned with flat-screen televisions and plush furniture. At some of the old motels, the desk clerks sit behind burglar bars and several signs warn against bringing extra guests into the rooms.
But in the face of those differences, officials at SpringHill say they feel connected to the old motels of Colfax in a way that goes deeper than simple geographic proximity.
Mark Witkiewicz, senior vice president for Corporex Colorado and the lead developer on the SpringHill project, said he is keenly aware of what the Colfax hotel scene used to be.
“This was the thoroughfare, this was where everybody passed through,” he said.
All that changed when Interstate 70 opened through Denver in 1964, diverting the cross-country travelers who were the customer base for the Colfax hotels.
Today, the customer base for the new hotel is a different group, primarily people visiting the area because of the hospitals on the Anschutz Medical Campus, Witkiewicz and other officials have said.
Hopefully, Witkiewicz said during the hotel’s grand opening celebration earlier this month, SpringHill and the other developments in the area can help bring back some of those glory days for the area.
“It’s the rebirth of Colfax,” he said.
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Information from: The Aurora Sentinel,
