A hotel along Interstate 70 in Wheat Ridge that hosted Elvis before acquiring a reputation as a magnet for criminal activity is being demolished.
The American Motel, situated northwest of the Kipling Street interchange, closed last July. Itap being torn down by American Demolition, which is based in Brighton.
The 5.8-acre Wheat Ridge property is owned by Terrapin Investments, which paid $9 million for it in January 2023, according to public records.
Terrapin owner Tony Sherman told The Denver Post in September that he planned to sell the property to Dallas, Texas-based Trinsic Residential Group after demolition.
Trinsic, which didn’t respond to a request for comment, plans to build a 335-unit apartment building on the site, according to the city’s website.
The inn was a Ramada in 1976, when Elvis stayed there on the way to a ski vacation in Vail. It took on the American Motel name in the 1980s and eventually began to focus on the bottom of the market.
In 2019, 7% of all arrests in Wheat Ridge — which has about 32,000 residents — occurred at the American Motel, according to Colorado Community Media coverage of a presentation to the City Council in March 2021. Later that year, the city passed a licensing law that, among other things, limits how long guests can stay at its hotels. Police have said it led to a decrease in crime.
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