Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center wants to add up to 1,000 hotel rooms and a water park in a bid to boost its convention and vacation business near Denver airport.
The 1,501-room hotel owned by Nashville-based Ryman Hospitality Properties has filed plans for the first of a two-phase expansion proposed at 6700 North Gaylord Rockies Boulevard, in Aurora, the Denver Business Journal reported.
Initial plans call for adding 450 rooms and a 47,000-square-foot indoor water park. The expansion would boost hotel capacity to 1,950 rooms.
The new hotel tower would replace a parking lot to the southeast of the hotel, located about 20 miles east of Denver.
The new water park, called Soundwaves, will sit to the west of the new tower and connect to the Gaylord’s current indoor pool building. It would be modeled after the waterpark at Gaylord Opryland in Nashville.
A cost and timeline for the initial expansion were not disclosed.
A second phase under consideration will include another 550 guestrooms, according to a hotel consultant.
With additional rooms, the Gaylord will be able to “attract additional and larger convention groups to the area,” Scott Sickeler, principal at Atlanta-based Blur Workshop, said in a letter to Aurora on behalf of the hotel.
The expanded water park will also “appeal to convention groups as well as the family vacation market,” Sickeler added.
Gaylord Rockies opened in December 2018 and was partially renovated over the past year.
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The 85-acre hotel property is owned by Ryman Hospitality Properties, owner of the Grand Ole Opry, and is part of the Marriott Bonvoy brand. There are five other Gaylord convention resort properties across the nation.
In June last year, Ryman Hospitality bought JW Marriott Hill Country Resort and Spa in San Antonio, Texas, for $800 million.
— Dana Bartholomew