Barrons Development is planning a luxury hotel on Block 034-B in Upper Downtown at 1800 Sherman Street. The hotel will occupy the L-shaped parking lot site at the corner of East 18th Avenue and Sherman, and will feature approximately 300 hotel rooms and one level of underground parking in a 400,000 gross square foot building that will rise around 9 to 12 stories. The project architect is Denver’s Buchanan Yonushewski Group, which has designed a number of projects in the area including the Tower on the Park, Grant Park, and One Lincoln Park condominium projects. The new hotel will share the block with the 14-story Portofino condominium tower, which was completed in 2003. The design of the project is still in the works, but below is a rendering showing a preliminary massing of the hotel on the site (click and expand to view image at full size):
In the image above, Sherman Street is on the left, East 18th Avenue is on the right, and the Portofino is in the background.
The operator of the hotel has not yet been determined, but Barron Development is currently in negotiations with a major hotel brand to manage the property. Groundbreaking on the project is expected for late 2007 or early 2008. John Rebchook of the Rocky Mountain News reports in today’s paper on Barron Development’s efforts to purchase the nearby “El Jebel” property, once the site of a proposed tower by developer Donald Trump. You can read the article here: Barrons’ Bid to Buy El Jebel Site Falls Short
The 1800 Sherman hotel project represents a major step forward in helping link the Uptown neighborhood with the Central Business District, and bringing additional uses to an area that has been dominated by office buildings. Along with all the new residential infill developments nearby, this hotel project continues the transformation of the eastern edge of Downtown into a vibrant, mixed-use district.