New effort to revive Denver’s historic Rossonian Hotel moves forward

New plans to resurrect the historic Rossonian Hotel in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood call for a 150-seat restaurant and bar, 90 hotel rooms, a conference space and a lobby music lounge with a Prohibition-era feel to reflect the hotel’s jazz-age heyday.

The Denver Landmark Preservation Commission this month approved a new design plan for the 112-year-old hotel, signaling the building may finally be renovated after years of promises from developers and swelling hope in a neighborhood that needs an economic boost.

The project, however, still needs approval from other city agencies before developers can break ground.

“Any forward movement on the Rossonian is significantly encouraging for this corridor,” said Haroun Cowans, president of the Five Points Business Improvement District. “Personally having been involved in this project on and off for more than a decade, and now seeing momentum and progress, is a definite positive.”

The preservation commission approved plans that will allow Palisade Partners, the development company that owns the building, to renovate the main site at 2650 Welton St. while adding an eight-story addition to the south that would be bracketed by Welton and Washington streets.

The commission also approved a plan to demolish the building’s old roof, which is in disrepair. The new roof would preserve the portico over the cornices and other historic details, as well as shore up the building’s walls, which are starting to pull away from the structure after years of neglect, according to a presentation before the preservation commission.

“It’s reflective of the historic but also respectful of the historic,” Brad Gassman of Craine Architecture said during the July 9 meeting. “It’s a successful beautification of the old and the new. And it’s kind of a fun approach to setting a historic building off and tying it back into the neighborhood.”

The preservation commission’s discussion did not include a start date for the renovation project, and representatives from Palisade Partners did not respond to emails from The Denver Post seeking further information.

Genna Morton, a spokeswoman for Denver’s Community Planning and Development, said the Landmark Preservation Commission was the first step for developers to make sure the plans aligned with design guidelines for the Five Points Historic Cultural District. The site development plan and zoning permit review now must be completed before developers can apply for building permits and start construction, she said.

The Rossonian Hotel, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is the centerpiece of the Five Points neighborhood. The triangular building sits at the five-way intersection — the convergence of Welton, 27th and North Washington streets — that gives the neighborhood its name.

The neighborhood was known between the 1920s and 1960s as a thriving business and residential district for Black people, who were segregated from other parts of the city. The Rossonian was home to a popular jazz club, earning a national reputation because it was a place to stop for musicians traveling between Kansas City and Los Angeles. Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday were among the famous artists who stayed and performed there.

For years, people who live and work along Welton Street have held high hopes that a restored Rossonian would revive the business district.

The Welton Street corridor has struggled since 2020, when the pandemic caused business to slump with multiple storefronts closing or relocating.

Dan Sawyer, who owns Duke’s Good Sandwiches with his wife, Michelle Sawyer, said they’re eager to see the development project finally get started after years of waiting. They picked their location at 2748 Welton St. in part because of the promises surrounding the Rossonian’s redevelopment.

“I made the joke the other day that I wouldn’t care if they put a Ferris wheel on top of the building. Just do something,” Dan Sawyer said. “If the developers are serious about it and really trying to push forward, that’s great news for us, the neighborhood and the city.”

The Rossonian, built in 1912, has changed hands multiple times since the 1990s and is now owned by Palisade Partners, a development company that also has built large apartment complexes along the corridor.

Palisade became the Rossonian’s third ownership group in recent years when it paid $6 million for the building in 2017. Since then, multiple announcements have been made with much fanfare over big-name investors and well-known retail partners.

But those plans never materialized, in part because of the pandemic.

This time, Palisade Partners and its team from Craine Architecture appeared before the preservation commission to explain design plans and how they want the hotel to look. During the meeting, Gassman said they had studied old pictures and talked with preservationists to come up with the best design for the Rossonian.