Hammons attends hotel ‘groundbreaking’

LOVELAND – It’s finally official.

With huge earthmoving equipment scurrying and scraping outside the fourth floor window of the Budweiser Events Center, hotel developer John Q. Hammons on Tuesday morning spoke of his plans for the new Embassy Suites hotel at the Larimer County Fairgrounds Complex, set to open in the spring of 2009.

“I’ve always liked this area,´ said Hammons, owner of the Springfield, Mo.-based John Q. Hammons Hotels and Resorts LLC, at a press conference hosted by county officials. “When I built the (Holiday Inn) hotel in Fort Collins it was not easy and took a long time to get that together and be near the (CSU) campus. That same need is here, too.”

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Hammons’ previous project, at 425 W. Prospect Road, is now called the Hilton Fort Collins.

Hammons, 88, has been developing hotels all over the nation for decades. He said the Embassy Suites Hotel to be built at The Ranch will be No. 198, followed by No. 199 in Colorado Springs near the Air Force Academy, where he was headed later in the day.

Hammons said he decided the time was ripe to build at The Ranch. “The market has been here a long time and we never build unless there’s a market, unless we can get the best site and that we can fill the void that’s in the marketplace.”

The eight-story, 263-room Embassy Suites Hotel and Convention Center will rise on a 20-acre site leased from Larimer County. The $60 million facility will include about 80,000 square feet of convention space.

Hammons praised the county and local developers Martin Lind and Chad and Troy McWhinney for building the fairgrounds complex, nearby Centerra shopping center and the roads and other infrastructure needed to make the hotel a viable project.

Plans for a Hammons-developed hotel have been on-again, off-again for about three years but Hammons said he never had any doubt “whatsoever” about eventually building a hotel at The Ranch. “You have to be so careful about the market and what it means,” he said. “We’re going to build a nice hotel. But if you’re not careful, it can be suicide.”

Lind told Hammons his hotel-convention center would take The Ranch to another level. “What you’re going to do is change this place and change Northern Colorado, and we’re very pleased to have you here, and we’ll support you,” the Windsor-based developer said.

Commissioner Kathay Rennels and Loveland City Manager Don Williams said Hammons decided to build without any tax incentives. “A man like Mr. Hammons kind of gets a plan and he goes with it,” Williams said.

But Larimer County Manager Frank Lancaster noted that the county is providing a 55-year lease on the land to Hammons, a revenue-sharing deal that is expected to produce about $65 million for the county. Lancaster also noted that Hammons’ hotel would benefit from its proximity to The Ranch and its ongoing events and conventions.

“There’s a synergy here that makes both of us stronger than standing alone,” Lancaster said.

The new hotel is expected to take about 18 months to build and be ready for occupancy by March 1, 2009.