For years, the metro Denver region sought a killer tourism amenity, the kind that could increase convention business and bring new tourists to our market. The Denver region, at that time, lacked both a major league baseball team (and other professional teams) and a vibrant arts and cultural scene (museums, galleries, etc.).
When NASCAR flirted with metro Denver and raised the potential for a permanent solution for the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo, the Regional Tourism Act was born. Finally, we had the financial incentives to create the killer amenity.
When the Regional Tourism Act (RTA) was enacted, much of the region shared a concern that any RTA project would increase the number of hotel rooms in markets where projects were developed. We feared it would set off a series of legal fights within the hotel industry that would pull the entire metro Denver region down. Our fears have been realized with the Gaylord project.
These internal hotel industry fights are not new. When the Convention Center was completed in the late 1980s, meeting planners nationwide applauded, but said we lacked one important amenity: a convention center hotel.
Repeated efforts over several years to gain local hoteliers’ support for this significant asset were unsuccessful. Eventually, Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, impatient with lack of progress and the inability to secure a national chain to build the hotel, decided to build it himself. His decision is affirmed by the success of the Grand Hyatt Hotel and the increased ability of the convention center to lure business conventions to our state.
The tourism industry supported the RTA legislation. Today, it is the rule of law. Aurora competed not just once to win RTA, but twice — the first to be chosen by the developer. Aurora edged out Broomfield and Commerce City for the site. In a second statewide competition, Aurora was awarded RTA status. Neither Broomfield nor Commerce City has opposed the Gaylord Project. Metro Denver economic development groups operate under a code of ethics which forbids its members from trying to thwart projects in other communities.
Aurora’s RTA award is in line with the statute and procedures outlined by the Colorado Economic Development Commission and Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
The site remains the same, but the development structure has been revised. The RTA is crafted in such a way as to anticipate such changes and the amount of contribution that comes from the state of Colorado. Aurora remains the grantee, not the developers — not Gaylord, not Marriott.
Our biggest concern is the controversy’s impact on our region. Metro Denver and Colorado spent the last 30 years clawing their way to the global stage. As this project continues to simmer, it may create a view outside Colorado that we are inhospitable to new projects and ideas. Being perceived as a “hometowner” when it comes to such opportunities guarantees only one thing: fewer opportunities.
When companies worry about an insular market where outsiders are unwelcome, we are all diminished. The consequences of such behaviors ripple far beyond a single hotel. These perceptions tend to generalize beyond the identified point of contention, spreading quickly through social media, websites and the electronic world. Competing states are quick to add such information to their Twitter feeds and blogs.
The metro Denver region for four decades has operated with a set of customs that bind a view of collaboration, jointly shared success and a commitment to do great things together while observing the highest ethical standards. These customs have served us well.
Our openness with one another and seamless delivery of services to potential new job creators distinguishes us from every other metro area in the country. It should come as no surprise that we are the third-fastest job-producing region in the nation and are viewed nationally as the model of regionalism.
Recent turmoil has stretched the fabric that has served us so well.
We can do better. We must do better, or we risk the very central element of our success” — our ability to do great things, together.
Tom Clark is chief executive of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation.
