The accolades started pouring in almost as soon as The Crawford Hotel opened its doors in summer 2014. Just last month, a Forbes travel writer ranked the historic train depot-turned-luxury hotel in Lower Downtown among the 10 best hotels of 2015 — anywhere in the world — calling it “the coolest new hotel I have visited in a long time” and “as hip and lively a hotel scene as you can imagine, but not in a self-consciously and artificially hip Brooklyn-esque way.”
For Sage Hospitality, which operates the 112-room independent hotel inside Denver Union Station, where the Great Hall doubles as the lobby, the results have been better than even they imagined, CEO Walter Isenberg said.
“We set out to really make Union Station the go-to place for locals and visitors. If you’re going to a city, it’s one of those things — oh, my God, you’re going to Denver, you have to go to Union Station. We have achieved that,” Isenberg said. “We really exceeded the financial expectations we were going to achieve, as well. We’re excited about what the new calendar year brings.”
That new year will include a continued push by the Denver-based hospitality company into the independent market, part of a national trend toward unique and interesting upscale hotel environments.
Sage’s two projects under development in Denver are independent hotels — the Halcyon Hotel in Cherry Creek, opening this summer, and the yet-unnamed hotel being built as part of the Dairy Block redevelopment in LoDo. Sage also has others in the works across the nation.
“As we saw the results and success we’ve had (at The Crawford), it reinforced for us how we can, as a company, be successful with owning and operating more independent hotels, and frankly not just in Denver, but in other cities as well as we look to grow,” Isenberg said.
No one hotel for all
Nationally, even the big hotel brands are coming around to the fact that one-size-fits-all does not meet the needs of today’s higher-end and luxury travelers, industry analysts said.
“Is the trend growing? Yes,” said Susan Furbay, vice president of business development at HVS, an international hotel consulting firm in New York. “The brand companies are realizing that the concept of having the same template, one after another, isn’t the future anymore. Guests want to experience something new and different.”
Marriott now has its Autograph Collection, a group of hotels that maintain their independent identity while gaining access to the brand’s reservation and loyalty program backbone. The Brown Palace Hotel in Denver is one of them.
Hilton in 2014 launched Curio, assembling an international roster of boutique four- and five-star hotels, including Boulders Resort near Scottsdale, Ariz., and the Hotel Alex Johnson in Rapid City, S.D.
Furbay said location is key for independent-minded hotels.
“A government contractor isn’t going to stay in an independent hotel outside of Pittsburgh,” said Furbay, who worked for Sage earlier in her career. “Denver is a good market to have independent hotels — markets like Miami, New York, that’s a no-brainer, San Francisco, markets where you have millennial travelers. Millennials are more inclined to want something different — I’m going to Denver and rather than saying, ‘I’m staying at the Radisson,’ it’s ‘I’m staying at Hotel XYZ and you should see the lobby.’ “
As Denver has become a travel destination in its own right, so too has it become attractive for independent hoteliers, said Robert Benton, a hotel-industry analyst based in Parker.
“If people were just passing through, the brand would be a lot more important,” Benton said. “But with Denver becoming a destination, people are really becoming a lot more selective on the type of hotel they’re doing. They’re doing a lot more research.”
Overall, the hotel market in the Denver area is the strongest it has ever been, with occupancy rates planted firmly in the mid-70 percent range as 2105 drew to a close, Benton said.
“Right now, it’s really strong and everyone’s doing well, but as the market gets soft — and it will get soft at some point in the future — it will be interesting to see what happens,” he said. “The independents really have to have established themselves in their marketing and their identity so they can withstand the downturn.”
“Cool local experience”
Even before The Crawford opened, though, Sage was no stranger to independence.
For 25 years, the company has operated The Oxford Hotel, a historic property home to the iconic art-deco Cruise Room in LoDo, and it recently completed a 96-room expansion to Hotel Commonwealth in Boston. Another independent property is in the works in Seattle, Isenberg said.
Sage also operates soft-branded properties, including The Nines Hotel in Portland, Ore., for Starwood’s Luxury Collection and recently renovated The Logan in Philadelphia for Hilton’s Curio.
Still, independent and soft-branded hotels make up only a fraction of Sage’s 74-property portfolio.
Isenberg said technology and consumer trends, though, are making independents more viable than they would have been even 10 years ago.
“Brands like Marriott are very well-trusted, but if you were traveling to a city where you didn’t know anyone, today you would go and Google, and you might go on Trip Advisor and find other social media sites where people are talking about their experiences, or you might read a travel blog and find out about these things,” Isenberg said. “People are really looking to find that really cool local experience.”
When it opens this summer, the 155-room Halcyon in Cherry Creek will be Sage’s third independent hotel in Denver.
Built on the site of the former post office building at 245 Columbine St., the Halcyon promises “modern luxury with a twist of staying at your best friend’s welcoming home,” according to Sage officials.
Rooms will feature turntables with “a selection of the classics,” refrigerators for leftovers, filtered still and sparkling water, and craft cocktail ingredients delivered by room service.
Guests will be able to borrow bikes and get fitted for snowboarding or ski gear. Sage Restaurant Group’s modern Asian Departure will be one of two restaurants on site.
“Halcyon will be not only an exciting place to be for travelers, but with the culinary offerings, rooftop bar, pool and comfortable atmosphere, we look forward to it being a favorite place for locals as well,” Sage Restaurant Group chief operating officer Peter Karpinski said late last year when announcing the hotel’s name. “It will be well-appointed, with subtle art, textiles and amenities that make it more than a normal hotel room.”
Emilie Rusch: 303-954-2457, erusch@denverpost.com or @emilierusch
