Boulder council to discuss MOU with CU on new hotel, conference center

BOULDER — The Boulder City Council on Tuesday night will consider a proposed memorandum of understanding between the city and the University of Colorado outlining general parameters for a hotel and conference facility on CU property near Broadway and Grandview Avenue.

The MOU, if approved, would establish “how the city and the university will collaborate in the next phases of planning and development of the project,” according to a memo to council from city staff.

One of the major provisions of the MOU is that the space include a ballroom of at least 15,000 square feet — 5,000 square feet of which could be repurposed after 20 years if it is being underused.

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But the agreement also includes the city dedicating at least 45 percent of the accommodation taxes generated by hotel occupancy at the site to CU for at least 20 years. An additional 10 percent of those taxes would be dedicated to a buy-down fund to help make use of the space more affordable for community groups and nonprofits. And the door would be left open to discuss other tax-revenue dedications as the project takes shape.

CU officials have been exploring the potential for development of a conference center for years and, in December, City Council supported exploring city investment in such a project to encourage CU to choose the Grandview site rather than a site the school was eyeing at the southwest corner of Arapahoe Avenue and Folsom Street. The idea was also to encourage CU to build a larger ballroom — big enough to accommodate gatherings of 800 to 1,000 people — and more overall meeting space than originally planned.

The 3-acre Grandview site is bounded generally by Andrews Arboretum on the north, 13th Street on the east, University Avenue on the south and Broadway to the west.

The facility would include a hotel with roughly 250 hotel rooms, as well as an underground parking garage. The idea is that CU would lease the property to a third-party developer that would construct the new facility.

The city prefers the Grandview site to the Arapahoe and Folsom site due to its proximity to downtown, as well as access to public transportation and the effect the conference center could have on revitalization efforts on University Hill.

City staff wrote in the memo that, in acknowledgement of the fact that CU would be dedicating prime land adjacent to the main campus that the school could use for other purposes, the MOU also outlines a process by which the city would help CU identify other sites for expansion.

If council approves entering into the MOU, city staff would then set out to develop a more-formal memorandum of agreement within 90 days. Staff would also discuss with CU officials how to collaborate on a request for proposals to private developers.