Downtown Boulder could soon get 110-room hotel

BOULDER — Midnight Auteur LLC, a hotel developer and operator formed by leaders of the Ramble Hotel in Denver and the popular New York-born cocktail bar chain Death & Co., plans to build a 110-room hotel on the site of a city-owned parking lot in downtown Boulder. 

City officials said Wednesday that they have reached a tentative deal with the company to sell the 59-space lot — controlled by the Central Area General Improvement District, or CAGID, and located at 2121 Broadway, about a block from the Hotel Boulderado — to Midnight Auteur for $5.8 million.

The proposed hotel would support “the city’s commitment to downtown revitalization and (represent a) new investment to help strengthen the local economy,” the city said in a news release. “The hotel will also increase Boulder’s room capacity in the core downtown to host large-scale events.”

Local government and business leaders, along with officials from the Sundance Film Festival, have stressed the need to add more hotel rooms, especially around downtown Boulder, as the city prepares to host its first Sundance in January 2027. 

“We knew when we were going through the (process of choosing a new host city … what our baseline was for hotels and lodging needs. And we knew that Boulder wasn’t quite meeting where we needed to be,” Sundance Institute board of trustees chairman Ebs Burnough said during a March panel discussion. “That was a hurdle that needed to be crossed.”

A new hotel at 2121 Broadway is unlikely to be erected at the Broadway parking lot site in time for the inaugural Boulder festival, but the city will be home to Sundance for at least 10 years. 

“The city anticipates that the lot will be accessible (for parking) for at least the next year while the proposed development goes through the entitlement process,” a city spokesperson told BizWest in an email Wednesday. “It’s too early to speculate on construction durations at this point.”

Beyond the hotel rooms, the “project features ground-level commercial space offered at below-market rates for qualifying local and independent businesses, along with publicly accessible gathering areas and a rooftop designed to support community connection and cultural exchange,” the Boulder release said. “The development team, known locally for the development and operation of Denver’s award-winning Ramble Hotel, has also committed to incorporating art and cultural events into the project, which is a core component of all its projects.”

Boulder’s Central Area General Improvement District manages 2,209 spaces across six parking garages and four surface lots. 

While nearby business operators and their customers who regularly use the Broadway parking lot may raise concerns about the loss of spaces, a “parking study concluded that nearby garages have sufficient capacity to accommodate the parking currently provided at 2121 Broadway,” the release said. 

Adding to that, a Boulder spokesperson told BizWest: “The city commissioned a parking study looking at capacity across three parking structures relative to demand, whether they can absorb the 59 spaces at Broadway/Spruce, and the projected demand from the proposed hotel. At 95th-percentile capacity, the study found the existing structures can accommodate both the lost surface spaces and the added hotel demand — based on actual usage data from our garages. We’re also working with the developer to route hotel parking directly into less-utilized structures like the Trinity Garage.  We are committed to working with visitors and businesses who are used to parking in that location to ensure ease of access at other nearby locations.”

Midnight Auteur is led by Ryan Diggins, founder and operator of the Ramble Hotel in Denver’s River North District; David Kaplan, founder of Death & Co., which opened its Denver outpost in the Ramble nearly a decade ago; and Alex Day, chief operating officer of Los Angeles-based hospitality group Gin & Luck.

“Growing up in the Boulder area, one of my favorite memories was walking to Freddie’s after school, grabbing a couple hot dogs and watching the rhythm of Pearl Street. Musicians, students, families, visitors — it’s always been so dynamic,” Diggins, who serves as Midnight Auteur’s CEO, said in the release. “That memory is a big part of why this project means so much to me. Creating a hotel just off Pearl Street is an incredible privilege and a responsibility; my hope is to build something additive to the vibrancy of Boulder — a place that serves both locals and travelers — and one that can be nimble enough to react to a city and its changing needs.”

The city’s tentative agreement with Midnight Auteur “represents an opportunity to turn a parking lot into an economic driver in our core downtown,” Boulder city manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde said in the release. “The proposal creates tangible community benefits, from affordable space for local businesses to new public gathering areas and cultural amenities. It reflects a shared goal for a downtown that supports economic resilience and fosters connection, creativity and a strong sense of place.”

When the parking-lot sale and hotel project proposal was initially presented last March to Boulder’s Downtown Management Commission, Midnight Auteur’s development team included real estate investors PassCo Properties Inc. and Landrock LP, commission documents show. It’s unclear whether those investors are still involved on the financing side, but the Boulder spokesperson told BizWest that the city “is working directly with local development and hotel operations team, Midnight Auteur. Passco is not involved in the project.”

The Downtown Management Commission will review the proposed sale agreement next Tuesday before the deal goes to Boulder City Council for approval in August. 

Share on Facebook on LinkedIn