A new plan for the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park: Sell it to Colorado bonding authority

The deal to sell the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park to an Arizona nonprofit has faded, so the state of Colorado is stepping in with a plan to buy the hotel.

The Colorado Educational and Cultural Facilities Authority, which helps nonprofit educational and arts groups fund capital projects, plans to take over ownership of the historic Stanley Hotel.

The authority will take the role as owner after the plan to sell the hotel to Arizona’s Community Finance Corp. fell through. Instead of selling to the Arizona group and taking ownership after as much as $450 million in bonds for renovating and upgrading the hotel are paid back, the Colorado Educational and Cultural Facilities Authority, or CECFA, will create a subsidiary and become the borrower of those bonds.

It’s a more simplified plan, said the district’s executive director Mark Heller.  

“Once the bonds are repaid, CECFA will own the property for the foreseeable future,” Heller said. “That will create a private source of funding that we could use to fulfill our mission in support of educational and cultural facilities across the state.”

It’s an unusual and complicated plan. The authority, which, since 1981, has helped 300 organizations across Colorado secure $7.6 billion in bonds for schools, student housing, performance halls, museums and Olympic training facilities, does not own any of the buildings it has helped fund.

The original plan was even more complicated, involving the Community Finance Corp. as the owner of the Stanley Hotel that would pay off the bonds and then transfer the property over to CECFA.

The new plan removes the middle man. The hotel will continue to be operated by the Grand Heritage Hotel Group, which has owned the Stanley Hotel since the 1990s. The hotel group in December announced a plan to sell the 140-room hotel to the Community Finance Corp., which works to use bond funding and private dollars to reduce the burden of high-dollar capital projects carried by taxpayers.

A plan to raise $450 million from selling bonds would help fund the acquisition of the hotel for $169 million, $40 million for the Grand Heritage Group’s nearly 89-unit Fall River Village Resort and $54 million for a new film center at the Stanley Hotel. The film center project is meant to  capitalize on the thousands of movie buffs who flock to the hotel every year to visit the 115-year-old building, which inspired Stephen King’s “The Shining.”

The Colorado Economic Development Commission in 2015 designated the Stanley Film Center a Regional Tourism Act project, qualifying it for $46.4 million in state sales tax incentives over 30 years.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and his film office last year announced that Blumhouse, the producer of high-profile horror films like “Halloween” and “Get Out,” would curate exhibit space in the 67,000-square-foot film center.

In a couple months, up-and-coming movie directors and their staff will gather at the Stanley for the Sundance Institute’s Directors Lab, a prestigious training program that included first-time filmmaker Quentin Tarantino in 1991. The Directors Lab landed at the Stanley Hotel with  $300,000 in incentives from the state’s Strategic Fund, film office and tourism office and $450,000 in incentives from the hotel’s owner.

A film center at the Stanley “will be a huge draw,” said the longtime head of the Colorado film office, Donald Zuckerman.

As states across the country fund programs that lure moviemakers, Colorado’s film incentive program has languished.

“Think of all the famous filmmakers who will come to the Stanley Film Center and get a taste of Colorado they have never had before,” said Zuckerman, noting that Tarantino eventually returned to Colorado to film “The Hateful Eight” near Telluride. “Some of them are going to decide they want to make movies here. There is a tremendous opportunity here to really enhance the image of Colorado all around the world.”

There are some hurdles ahead as the Stanley plan unfolds. CECFA will seek approval from the legislature this session, which ends in a month, to expand its operational role to include things like contracting with a management company to run properties it owns. Then it needs to sell the bonds.

Jeff Kraft, the deputy director of the state office of economic development, said the proposed legislation “will enable the organization to engage in a wider range of community revitalization projects.”

“That’s a win for the Colorado communities that will benefit from its important work, and OEDIT looks forward to working with CECFA on future projects,” said Kraft in an email to The Colorado Sun.

Source: Coloradosun.com