Libby's Denver Blog

So excited to announce the Four Seasons Denver is open!

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photo by Four Seasons Hotel Denver

The new Four Seasons Hotel Denver, right of center, looms over the city’s theater district.

Further Reading

• Four Season sells high-end condo for $6.4M

After three years of construction and three weeks of intensive preparation, the Four Seasons Hotel Denver finally opened Tuesday.

The $300 million, 239-room hotel threw open its doors to guests and diners around 11:30 a.m. MDT after a ribbon-cutting ceremony that featured Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Jim FitzGibbon, president of Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. The hotel was at 60 percent occupancy for its opening day and is close to being sold out for its debut weekend, general manager Thierry Kennel said.

Hotel rooms occupy the lower 14 floors of the 45-story building at 1111 14th Street, located catty-corner from the Denver Performing Arts Complex. The upper 31 stories are home to 102 private residences, where move-ins began a few weeks ago.

Speakers at the ribbon-cutting ceremony said the Four Seasons will bring a new brand of luxury to Denver’s already flourishing hotel scene, adding a resting place, gathering rooms and an upscale restaurant in what is now the fourth-tallest building in the city.

“This is a big day, not just for Denver but for Colorado,” Hickenlooper told a crowd of Four Seasons employees and city tourism officials gathered near the new facility’s front door. “The Four Seasons is a measure in every part of the world of excellence of a city … This is going to be a five-star boost to the city and the county.”

The hotel has 280 employees, 60 of whom requested to transfer to Denver from other hotels in the chain, said FitzGibbon. Those employees had just completed three weeks of practice for Tuesday’s big event.

In addition to its guest rooms, the Four Seasons will feature Edge Restaurant and Bar, 17,000 square feet of meeting space, a spa and rooftop pool and nearly 1,200 works of local art.

The hotel is offering introductory room rates starting at $180 a night through Jan. 31. Its normal rates will be in the range of “the high two hundreds to the low three hundreds,” Kennel said.

“It’s an overwhelming sort of excitement and almost a sense of relief after you work so hard for so long,” he said shortly after the ceremony.

Chris Norton, project director for the residences in the building, said he, too, is excited to have the hotel in place, as residents will now get to take full advantage of amenities like room service, dry cleaning and the spa.

Owners of the building just sold an $8 million penthouse, he said.

The structure was developed by Michael Brenneman, Jeff Selby and their partners at 1111 Tower LLC of Denver. Brenneman and Selby formerly owned the Hotel Teatro boutique hotel in downtown Denver.

esealover@bizjournals.com | 303-803-9229 | The DBJ’s Paula Moore contributed reporting