A long-planned effort to revive the former Rossonian Hotel building in Five Points may get some help from the Denver Urban Renewal Authority.
The agency, which aims to spur redevelopment of blighted properties in the city, is asking the Denver City Council to sign off on $15.5 million in tax-increment financing for the project at 2650 Welton St.
The financing, known as TIF, would allow property owner Palisade Partners to be reimbursed for certain construction costs by the additional property and sales tax revenue the completed project creates.
The 3-story Rossonian hotel was a hub for black residents of Denver from the 1930s to 1950s, hosting performances by music legends such as Duke Ellington.
It closed in 1973 and was used for office space for a time. Then, it languished.
“The hotel has been vacant since the ’90s, which is a bummer,” Bill Pruter, DURA’s interim executive director, said at a council committee meeting last week.
Denver-based Palisade bought the building for $6 million in 2016.
Palisade and partner Five Points Development Corp., which is affiliated with Denver-based Flyfisher Group, plan a project that would extend along the block, with 126 hotel rooms, 11,000 square feet of retail space and 7,200 square feet of event space.
The renovated Rossonian building itself would host only 18 of the hotel rooms, as well as some of the retail space. An additional 72 rooms would be contained in an 8-story building that Palisade and Flyfisher plan to build on empty lots next door, which a Flyfisher affiliate bought for $1.9 million in 2018.
The remaining 36 hotel rooms would be fashioned out of office space within The Hooper, an apartment building that Palisade broke ground on in 2019 and completed in 2021.
The project is expected to cost $100 million, according to documents prepared by DURA.
The council is expected to vote on whether to grant the TIF funding on June 1.
“I’ve watched the Rossonian sit there and sit there and sit there, and itap such a wonderful piece of property. And to not have it redeveloped, to lose that history, would be a crime,” Councilman Paul Kashmann said at last week’s committee meeting. “So I’m excited about this project.”
Sara White, a development project manager for Palisade, told BusinessDen that Palisade hopes to break ground this summer, assuming the TIF is approved. That would allow for completion sometime in 2028.
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