ROARING FORK BROADCASTING COMPANY
When the Hoffmann Hotel makes its debut in the midvalley on or around March 1, the owners and operators hope it soon becomes as much of a locals’ hangout as a tourists’ destination.
The 122-room hotel features a wide, inviting lobby that blends with the restaurant seating and feels like an extension of the nearby bar. It’s got the potential to create the same kind of feel as Aspen Hospitality’s Limelight Hotels in Aspen and Snowmass Village.
“I want someone when they walk into that lobby to feel like they are in a living room,” said Jeff Blackman, president of Bedford Lodging, which constructed the hotel, and founder of Five Senses Hospitality Management, which manages it. “I really envision the bar being fairly active and some of that bar and restaurant business spilling out into the lobby so that when you walk in you really feel the energy with both people having a good time and music as a big part of the brand as well.”
He said there will be live music one or two times per week, with playlists piped out through an extensive sound system on the other days. There will be food and drink specials at the Hoffmann House, the hotel’s restaurant and bar.
“We really want it to be a place where locals will want to come for dinner or a beer after work,” Blackman said. “We really want to look at it as a community resource and not just a place where people come from out of town to stay in the hotel. We want it to be a place where locals come and have a meeting in the lobby or use our amenities as well.”
In addition to the spacious lobby, restaurant and bar seating, there is seating indoors and outdoors.
The Hoffmann House will feature “casual Italian” cuisine, said Sue McGrath, the food and beverage director and a veteran of the midvalley restaurant scene. She was a former manager of Capitol Creek Brewery, among other positions. The restaurant will be “affordable” and provide “something for everyone,” she said. The restaurant will serve breakfast and dinner seven days per week.
The hotel features 1,500 square feet of meeting space with floor-to-ceiling windows providing great views of Crown Mountain and the top peaks of Mount Sopris. The meeting room has indoor and outdoor space that will be available for rent by community organizations and smaller niche spaces are also available, said sales manager Jordan L’Heureux. One of the first events hosted by the hotel will be the Basalt High School prom on April 27.
The Hoffmann Hotel is the centerpiece of the Tree Farm development across Highway 82 from Whole Foods. The approvals were secured by Ace Lane in June 2017 for the development alongside his Kodiak Lake, which serves as a water-skiing facility in the summer and motorsports track in the winter. Other, separate components of the development include an apartment complex on the east end of the lake and a senior living facility sandwiched between the hotel and the apartments. Development of a mix of commercial and residential space on the west end of the lake is hung up in a legal dispute between Lane and Scottsdale, Arizona, developer Walt Brown Jr.
Blackman’s Dallas-based Bedford Lodging broke ground on the Hoffmann Hotel in September 2021 and ran into supply chain shortages of materials and rapidly escalating prices related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“From a constructability standpoint, it went OK,” Blackman said. “The challenges have been that during COVID everything just cost more and took longer and those two things are typically not your friends when you are building things.”
Shipping costs on container ships tripled in price during the supply chain issues, Blackman said. That’s something the entire hospitality industry faced. It forced the industry to try harder to source products domestically or from Mexico to avoid shipping expenses, he said.
Blackman said his firm was fortunate to lock in prices two or three years ago because construction costs have continued to rise.
“If I were to build this hotel today, it would probably cost 35 to 40% more,” he said. “You see very few hotels coming out of the ground for new construction today because interest rates are higher, obviously; banks are tightening up and then construction costs are higher than they’ve ever been.”
Workers have been scrambling around the interior and exterior to make final preparations before opening. The team is hoping to pass an electrical inspection from Eagle County building department this week. Once approved, the hotel will have its temporary certificate of occupancy. A final certificate would be issued after it passes a landscaping inspection this spring.
Meanwhile, General Manager Doug Hayes and his team are putting the final touches on operations. Hayes took his position in June after previously working as the general manager at the Top of the Village in Snowmass Village and as director of operations at the St. Regis Hotel in Aspen. He said he is excited about the leadership team and staff he was able to assemble, despite the Roaring Fork Valley’s chronic labor shortage.
Hayes said the hotel’s location is one of its strengths. It’s close to Aspen and Snowmass and the ski scene. It’s equally close to the hot springs and other tourist amenities in Glenwood Springs. Hayes also expects to attract guests who tap into the great outdoor experiences offered in the midvalley. The hotel is also located about one-quarter of a mile from the Steadman Clinic, which is attracting patients from throughout the region for orthopedic care.
L’Heureux said the hotel will likely be popular for “bleisure stays” where guests combine business and leisure. They might come to the valley on business and either extend their stay or come early to play in the great outdoors.
The Hoffmann is part of Hilton chain’s Tapestry Collection. It’s considered a “soft brand” where each hotel is encouraged to establish character that matches its geographic area. That led to an interesting discovery by Blackman’s consultants.
“When we did the marketing study to figure out what do we want to name this hotel, they went into the history of the valley and Basalt and basalt stone specifically, and it turned out that the most popular or common type of kiln that they used to fire basalt stone was called the Hoffmann,” Blackman said. “So we played on that to obviously have a connection to the history of the valley and frankly it just had a nice ring to it.”
Sarah Gager, guest services manager for the hotel, noted during a recent tour of the facility that the ceiling above the bar features curved brick decor, a nod to the brick kiln shape.
The affiliation with Hilton is also expected to make the hotel popular. A Hampton Inn located in Glenwood Springs is Hilton’s sole presence in the Roaring Fork Valley. The chain has loyal customers and it was eager to see the Hoffmann opened, Blackman said.
The Hoffmann will be what he called a three-plus star hotel. Rooms at the start will range from $300 to $500 during winters and $200 to $400 in summers, according to Hayes. Rooms average 330 square feet and 13 have spacious balconies. Triple-pane windows shut out traffic noise for the rooms facing Highway 82.
Blackman noted that average daily rates for tourist accommodations have experienced strong increases in the last two or three years. He doesn’t expect those increases to continue but it benefitted the feasibility of the new hotel. He sees the Hoffmann as a good alternative to pricey accommodations upvalley for skiers.
“We’ll certainly be pricing ourselves at a value, at a discount to the resorts up on the mountains,” he said. “If there’s somewhat of a value play, I think that’s a really good position for us. This is truly a three-plus star hotel but we think we’re going to be nice and shiny and new and appealing to folks who don’t want to spend the money to be up on the mountain.”
This property is the 10th that Bedford Hotels has developed, the sixth in Colorado. “The staff that we’ve assembled is probably the best we have in our entire company,” he said. “They’re just eager to get guests in the building and I am too.”
Blackman was so thrilled to be in the Roaring Fork Valley market that he moved to Carbondale part-time.
“It’s going to be a great hotel for a long time. We like our spot,” he said.