Plan incorporates historic home of Spaghetti Factory
A 17-story hotel with about 200 rooms will be built at the back corner of the historic building that houses the Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant at the edge of lower downtown.
The restaurant at 1215 18th St. opened its doors in May 1973 in the Denver City Cable Railway Co. building, making it one of the oldest ongoing restaurants in downtown Denver.
The Cable building opened in 1889 to house the power plant and maintenance facilities for Denver's cable railway system. The building is a Denver Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places but came close to being razed in the name of urban renewal in the early 1970s.
The hotel, at 18th and Lawrence streets, will incorporate restaurant and retail space in the historic building, said developer Jeremy Records, principal of Central Development.
The hotel will go after the "upper middle" market but will not be competing directly against the Ritz Carlton under construction two blocks away, he said.
Records said it is too early to say whether in the new development the Spaghetti Factory will remain its current size or become smaller.
"We're in negotiations with them right now. Everything is on the table," Records said. "We're still in the design phase."
The restaurant is a "low-cost alternative for families in downtown," said restaurant consultant John Imbergamo.
The new $35 million project is being designed by the Buchanan Yonushewski Group.
The deal was first reported on Friday by urban designer Ken Schroeppel in his Denverinfill.com blog.
"The new (hotel) tower will feature a modern glass facade and will include a unique configuration to wrap behind the historic Cable Railway building's soaring brick smokestack," Schroeppel wrote. "The developers have designed the new tower to defer architecturally as much as possible to the historic building, which is intended to remain as the centerpiece to the development."
Records is scheduled to buy the building from the Judd family next month. Jim Judd, 81, one of the founders of Historic Denver, saved the building by buying it with a partner in 1972 and a year later moving the Spaghetti Factory into it.
"In the 1970s, urban renewal wanted to tear down all of the old and replace it with the new," Judd said. "The building has been a very successful venture. But the neighborhood changed and I'm getting up there in years."
Judd said a sale had to be contingent on the historic building being saved.
"I like Jeremy's plans very much," he said. Judd, in fact, may be an investor in the project. "That's still up in the air," he said.
By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News
March 17, 2007
Copyright 2007, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
