Crescent Real Estate LLC has purchased a legendary hotel in Denver, the 241-room Brown Palace Hotel and Spa.
The Fort Worth firm also purchased the adjacent 231-room Holiday Inn Express that is part of the Brown Palace hotel complex. The Brown Palace and Holiday Inn Express are in a prominent location in the heart of Denver’s financial district while in close proximity to the dense corporate concentration in Denver’s Central Business District. Terms of the deal were not released.
The Brown Palace, which opened in 1892 and is affiliated with Marriott’s Autograph Collection, features luxury amenities as well as six unique food and beverage venues including Palace Arms, Ship Tavern, Ellyngton’s, and Churchill Bar. The nine-story Brown Palace is also home to 19,900 square feet of meeting space, including a 5,800-square foot ballroom along with a full-service spa and salon and a flower shop. The Brown Palace has a long-standing tradition of afternoon tea in its famed lobby and is one of only a few Denver hotels to receive both the Forbes Four-Star and AAA Four-Diamond awards.
Crescent plans significant capital investments and service upgrades to enhance the customer experience and operations at the Brown Palace and Holiday Inn Express including renovations to the top two floors at the Brown Palace known as “Top of the Brown”.
Crescent has hired HEI Hotels & Resorts, a hotel management firm with extensive experience managing luxury and full-service hotels including numerous Autograph Collection properties.
“Acquiring the Brown Palace Hotel and Spa is another rare opportunity to own and operate a timeless and iconic hotel asset in a robust market for tourism and commercial business, Downtown Denver,” said Conrad Suszynski, co-CEO of Crescent.
The 22-story Holiday Inn Express completes the Brown Palace hotel complex. With a pedestrian sky bridge, Holiday Inn Express guests conveniently access restaurant hospitality and meeting space amenities at the Brown Palace Hotel and Spa. The Holiday Inn Express has 22 suites and 1,287 square feet of contemporary meeting space on-site and convenient access to the meeting space at the Brown Palace.
Crescent used its GP Invitation Fund I to purchase the Brown Palace Hotel and Spa and Holiday Inn Express. This is the fifth and sixth hotels purchased with the fund since July 2016 when Crescent purchased the 226-room, upscale Hotel Crescent Court and the 22,000-square-foot spa in Uptown Dallas. In February 2017, Crescent acquired the 382-room Sirata Beach Resort in St. Pete Beach, Florida. In October 2017, Crescent purchased the Westin Atlanta Perimeter North, a 372-room hotel in Atlanta, and earlier this year, Crescent purchased the Westin Annapolis, a 225-room hotel located in the heart of Annapolis, Maryland.
“Denver’s lodging market is robust as it has out-paced both the Top 25 markets and national average over the last 5 years. We believe future demand is fueled by exceptional employment and visitor growth which makes the Brown Palace hotel complex an exciting investment for Crescent,” said Suszynski.