Boulder to hold hearing on Hill hotel plans

BOULDER — A hotel on Boulder’s University Hill, versions of which have been in the planning stages for the past half-decade, is set for a virtual public hearing next week before the city’s Planning Board. 

The board will conduct a site and use review for the project and issue a recommendation to the Boulder City Council on March 18. 

Denver-based Nichols Partnerships’ plans for the hotel at 1313 Broadway near the University of Colorado Boulder campus call for nearly 115,000-square-feet of space split between two interconnected buildings. There would be 189 guest rooms and just more than 9,000 square feet of retail space. 

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Those guest room and retail space totals are down slightly from previous plans. 

According to documents submitted to the city, Nichols hopes to break ground in late 2021, with an estimated buildout in about 18.5 months. 

The proposal headed to the Planning Board is distinct from another planned hotel nearby. Through a public-private partnership, CU plans a $130-million, 250-room hotel with a 25,000-square-foot conference center on a roughly 3-acre plot on Grandview Avenue in the northwest corner of campus.

These new hotels are working their way through the approval process as another large Boulder hotel may be planning to exit the market. 

Landmark Properties Inc., a Georgia-based builder specializing in student housing, recently submitted preliminary planning documents to the city that indicate the company’s intent to transform the Millennium Harvest House Hotel at 1345 28th St. into apartments for CU students.