The clock struck midnight on an attempt in the Colorado Legislature to derail the Gaylord Rockies Hotel in Aurora, after a bill that threatened the project’s financing was effectively killed late Monday.
A little before midnight Monday, the Colorado Senate , which would have required a citywide vote on urban renewal projects that labeled agricultural land as blighted to secure tax increment subsidies.
The bill, had it passed, would have invalidated Aurora’s blighting of the raw land the hotel plans to occupy. Supporters of the hotel feared it could have retroactively scuttled the 1,500-room conference hotel near Denver International Airport by putting local subsidies into question.
“We appreciate the Senate for putting Colorado jobs first and keeping Colorado open for business,” Wendy Mitchell, president of the Aurora Economic Development Council, said in a statement. “We are pleased that a large coalition of over 90 businesses and organizations came together to support the project and continue a strong strong tradition of regional cooperation.”
SB 284 was sponsored by Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, and State Sen. Mark Scheffel, R-Parker, and reportedly had the backing of hoteliers in Denver and Colorado Springs concerned about increased competition from the heavily subsidized project.
Opponents of the project said the fight is not over.
“This project still has a long way to go,” said Sean Duffy, spokesman for those who oppose the project. “Litigation is still pending on the state subsidy in the state Court of Appeals, and Aurora has appealed the Adams County court order voiding the city’s one-person election, which a judge called secretive and in bad faith.
“Plus there are significant, unanswered questions that advocates simply refuse to answer about (the) hotel project and the taxing scheme used to subsidize it.”
Last month, the Gaylord Rockies Hotel broke ground and supporters believed that would have ended the years-long effort by a group of mainly Denver hoteliers to scuttle the project.
In 2012, Aurora and Gaylord Entertainment secured $81.4 million in state incentives from the Regional Tourism Act. The project also secured pledges of nearly $400 million in tax incentives from Aurora and nearby governments.
But the hotel group sued Aurora in Denver District Court, saying the city should have to reapply for the tourism tax because the proposal changed developers and operators after Aurora was awarded the money. but opponents are appealing that. And Aurora is appealing a ruling that said it violated the state’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in its election to boost the tax rate on the land that will hold the hotel.
The Gaylord Rockies Hotel if built would be the state’s largest, drawing 450,000 tourists to the state annually, according to the Aurora Economic Development Council. Some 10,000 people would be employed during construction of the $825 million conference hotel, and more than 2,500 in permanent jobs, the AEDC said.
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175, cillescas@denverpost.com or twitter.com/cillescasdp
