The Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center near the Denver International Airport is the largest construction project in America today. This massive 1,501 room facility is getting national attention, both for its size and because of the fact that it’s the first new Gaylord property to be built in 10 years.
The General Manager, Rick Medwedeff, acknowledged in an interview that he was pleased but also slightly surprised that the largest hotel project currently under construction in America will complete construction on time and stay within its $800 million budget.
“We were the authors of this project a decade ago, I suppose. We found the project, we identified this part of Colorado,” Colin Reed, Ryman CEO said in a recent interview. “This geography around that big airport is growing and growing and growing.”
This giant hotel is set to open on December 18th of this year and will be located at the intersection of East 64th Avenue and Himalaya Street in Aurora, Colorado. It will feature nine different bars and restaurants with 15 floors and a 75 foot tall atrium window in its Grand Lodge.
Among the dining and drinking spaces is Vista Montagne, an Italian restaurant that serves three meals a day but shares the space at night with a connected Asian-fusion restaurant called Monte Jade. When the space transitions from Italian to Asian cuisine the artwork on the walls will change too. The Italian paintings will turn around to become Asian artwork with added wood panels to give an extra aesthetic feel to the place.
“Over a million rooms have been booked, now these rooms have been booked over several years so I know that some people think that we’re booked up and we have no availability, that would be incorrect,” said Rick Medeweff, the general manager for the property. According to Medeweff some of the rooms have even been booked out as far as 2028.
Many of the conference rooms have been booked out for conventions and more than 80% of the conventions that were booked have never been held in Colorado before now.
“So we’re excited about that, that we’re bringing in new people to experience not only Aurora but the Denver Metro area and Colorado in general,” continued Medeweff.