Hotel Boulderado considers converting annex meeting space into guest rooms

BOULDER — Management at Hotel Boulderado, one of Boulder’s premier historic hotels, is mulling a plan that would see meeting space in one of the newer wings of the establishment converted into new guest rooms. 

Specifically, the plan, which appears to be cruising through Boulder’s approval process but has yet to be officially set in motion by Hotel Boulderado ownership, calls for the removal of conference rooms that are used for business meetings or events such as weddings in the hotel’s annex — a non-historic portion of the hotel on Pine Street built in the 1980s across from the Hotel Boulderado’s historic building that has operated on 13th Street for more than a century.

“Our most desirable meeting space is in the historic building on the mezzanine,” Hotel Boulderado general manager Creighton Smith told BizWest, while meeting space in the annex building “remains darker than we would like during different times of the year.”

In a memo to city officials, hotel representatives said: “With recent changes in the landscape of Boulder’s array of public accommodation, the Hotel Boulderado has been assessing how it can best address the evolving needs of the community and continue to be a viable contributor to the city’s commercial vitality into the future. In so doing, the hotel has come to recognize that the existing Boulderado Conference Center, now over 30 years old, is no longer a viable use of this key place in its facilities master plan.”

A more-viable use of the space, hotel leadership believes, would be the addition of more rooms. 

Converting the lesser-used annex meeting space into guest rooms will “maximize our premium meeting space” in the historic building, Smith said. “We will absolutely continue to be in the meeting, wedding and conference business.”

The hotel’s decision to focus on premium meeting space comes as competition for events in Boulder is likely to increase. The University of Colorado Boulder is partnering with Little Nell Hotel Group, the hospitality division of Aspen Skiing Co., to build and operate a Limelight-branded hotel and conference center nearby on Grandview Avenue.

“It’s clearly not lost on us that the supply is going to grow” when the CU hotel and meeting space comes on line, Smith said, which could happen as soon as 2025.

Should the Hotel Boulderado move forward with its annex renovation plan, it would likely add 15 rooms.

Among the potential new rooms would be two-bedroom suites and “some very nice connecting rooms,” which “we think would enhance our product mix,” Smith said. “But the biggest piece (of the renovation project) is enhanced (Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA) rooms … with very good building access. Being a historic property, (accessibility is) something we’re challenged with currently.”

A decision on whether to embark on the renovation is likely to be made in the next few months. “Once you clear entitlements, you have three years to begin with building permits,” Smith said. “I would expect a decision (to move forward with the conversion of annex meeting space) in the first quarter of 2024.”

Should the hotel decide in favor of the renovations, the project would likely start in late 2024 or early 2025.

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