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Page 6 — COLORADO REAL ESTATE JOURNAL — March 4-March 17, 2015
by Jill Jamieson-Nichols
White Lodging is launching a
second dual-brand hotel tower
in downtown Denver, this time
bringing together two complete-
ly separate hotel companies.
White Lodging’s latest proj-
ect will combine an AC Hotels
by Marriott – a select-service
product – with a full-service
Le Méridien hotel, a Starwood
brand. Each hotel will have its
own entry, lobby, and food and
beverage offerings.
Both brands originated
in Europe and are growing
throughout the United States
and Latin America.
The 18-story tower at 15th and
California streets, a block from
the Colorado Convention Cen-
ter, will break ground in spring,
in advance of the opening of
White Lodging’s dual-branded
Hyatt Place-Hyatt House hotel
a few blocks away at 14th and
Glenarm streets. The 21-story
Hyatt, slated to open in fall,
will have 346 rooms. The AC-Le
Méridien will bring an addi-
tional 491 rooms to the market
in 2017.
While there could be a blip in
downtown Denver’s hotel mar-
ket as demand catches up with
new supply, hotel expert Mike
Cahill of HREC isn’t concerned
about the number of new rooms
that have been added and con-
tinue to come on line this devel-
opment cycle. Demand for hotel
rooms continues to grow down-
town, he said.
“You may see some tempo-
rary market adjustment, but
overall downtown Denver is
very positive – even with the
new supply,” he said.
Cahill said the dual-brand
concept is growing across the
country, in part because having
two reservation systems feeding
into one property with two dif-
ferent products helps diversify
risk. In the case of the AC-Le
Méridien, “You have two com-
pletely different companies
coming together, so they have
great brand diversification. The
beauty is they’re going to have
Marriott pumping reservations
into the AC and they’re going
to have Starwood pumping res-
ervations into the Le Méridien,”
he said.
White Lodging and Friedman
Properties co-developed a 664-
room building that combines an
aloft, Hyatt Place and Fairfield
Inn & Suites, each with separate
entries, lobbies and elevators,
in downtown
Chicago in
2013. Deno
Y i a n k e s ,
White Lodg-
ing president
and CEO of
investments
and develop-
ment, said in
an email it’s
a good strat-
egy, particularly in urban loca-
tions where land is expensive.
“It allows us to maximize the
density of the site, provides up-
front construction cost efficien-
cies and also ongoing opera-
tional synergies,” he said.
“In addition, it provides us
with multiple hotel brand book-
ing channels versus one and
also takes a potentially competi-
tive brand out of the market-
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The AC and Le Méridien hotels will bring Marriott and Starwood brands
together in a single building a block from the Colorado Convention
Center and 16th Street Mall.
Deno Yiankes