Boulder officials to review student-housing project at former Best Western

BOULDER — A plan to turn the former Best Western hotel site at 770 28th St. in Boulder into a student-housing apartment complex could soon come to fruition as the Boulder City Council is set Tuesday to weigh in with a site and use review for the proposal.

Chicago-based developer Core Spaces, through holding company Core Boulder 28th Street LLC, bought the 99-room hotel and grounds for $28.5 million from Neda Enterprises Partnership LP late last year and has proposed to turn the five-decades-plus-old lodge into The Hub, a community for University of Colorado students. The facility would feature 96 four-bedroom rental units with amenities spaces, common areas and a ground floor café.

An existing, five-story, nearly 19,000-square-foot office building at the east end of the roughly 3.4-acre site at 777 29th St. will remain, Boulder planning documents show. 

It’s unlikely that the potential Boulder City Council approval of The Hub will be controversial. The Boulder Planning Board, with certain conditions, has signed off on the project, and the City Council declined to review a concept plan when it had an opportunity to do so last year. 

Should The Hub be built, it would add another offering to the row of student-housing developments along that stretch of 28th Street, including the U Club on 28th, 104 28th St., Spanish Towers, the Lodge, the Lotus, and Kensington Apartments.

Built in 1970 as the Royal Inn and Jolly King Restaurant, the hotel was converted into a Best Western in 1979. It was upgraded to a Best Western Plus in 2011 and had been remodeled as recently as 2015.

The hotel was a hub for visiting parents, attendees of conferences at the University of Colorado Boulder, as well as visitors to the city’s federal labs. With the Best Western closing and the two hotels under construction on the Hill still years away, the hotel’s director of sales Ari Rubin told BizWest at the time of the sale that the CU campus area could face a “dearth of lodging choices” until the Hill hotels are finished.

Rubin added that most of the Best Western employees have found jobs at other Boulder hotels.

There appears to be the beginnings of a trend happening with Boulder County Best Western hotel locations being purchased for conversion into housing. 

Vivo Apt Longmont LLC, a subsidiary of California-based Vivo Living, bought the 39-year-old Best Western Plus Plaza Hotel at 1900 Ken Pratt Blvd. in Longmont from CO Hotel LLC, an affiliate of Chester, Virginia-based Shamin Hotels, last year for $15.4 million. 

Vivo has an in-house construction team that operates under a “hotels to homes” framework and “specializes in converting low-demand hotels to efficiency apartment complexes at market-rate pricing to renters while reducing traffic, waste and sprawl,” according to the company’s website. “Vivo is a response to rapid gentrification crowding out our younger population and exacerbating income inequality across the country. Vivo’s mission is to enhance the lives of those both in and part of our communities.”

For Core’s part, the Chicago student-housing developer is carving out a niche in Boulder.

In 2018 the company purchased a 1.7-acre plot at 1750 15th St., the former home of LiquorMart, from developer W.W. Reynolds Cos., for $16.6 million. 

Core is developing a three-story, nearly 150,000-square-foot, mixed-use project with more than 14,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor and 147 apartments on the upper floors.

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