Finally the conversion of Downtown Denver’s largest hotel - The Adam’s Mark - into a Sheraton has commenced.  According to collateral I received, the official name will be “Sheraton Denver Hotel”. It has been listed on the corporate website for a while as well (one visit to the hotel overview section and you can see why it will cost $70 million!).

I recently got an inside tip that exterior signage of the 1200 room hotel at 1515 Court Place was being changed out. Sure enough - I ventured out last Friday morning after a meeting and confirmed the rumor was true.  A few signs have been installed but you can easily see that a number are gone and awaiting replacement.  The largest ones at the top are gone - its kind of neat.

Then today there was finally a story about it in today’s Rocky Mountain News.  I first wrote about this conversion back August and most recently in February.  According the RMN article they will be spending this week installing the 8 ft x 10 ft letters on top of the 27 story hotel.  I walked over to see if any of the letters had been put up but it was still blank - they must still be staging everything on the roof.

I will try and get some “action” shots later this week.  I also heard a rumor that all of the ground floor retail space is being put up for lease.  That would mean Bravo! Ristorante, The Supreme Court, The Capitol Bar and Players could all leave and new restaurant/bar concepts could take over those spaces.  I wonder what new retailers we could get?  The Bravo space has a huge presence on the 16th Street Mall so I hope something very nice and high quality takes over that space. 

Regardless of the new tenants I really hope these changes involve significant facade improvements.  I know there cannot be changes made to the hotel exterior but the street level tenants represent a huge opportunity to enliven and freshen up the experience along the mall.  I will be following this very closely.  I have heard that room renovations will begin in October and the lobby/ballroom/conference facility renovations will start in January.  I believe they are hoping to have a grand re-opening in June or July 2009.  If you hear any rumors about new retail tenants for this project or others in Downtown Denver please let me know!