Last edited 1:45 p.m., July 21John Q. Hammons Hotels & Resorts has reportedly walked away from an incomplete 300-room Renaissance Hotel development in Colorado Springs, Colo. The abandoned hotel will be sold to new owners later this year, according to a news article from the
Colorado Springs Gazette.
Construction stalled in October 2009 after JQH Hotels put a halt to the project, causing Tulsa, Okla., construction firm Flintco Inc. to file a $29.3 million mechanic's lien - which was later reduced to $24.6 million - to dispute the developer's inability to obtain financing for the project, according to
Springfield Business Journal archives.
Justin Harris, JQH Hotels senior vice president and general counsel, said the stoppage of the roughly $92 million project was largely financial in nature.
"Mr. Hammons and the development team started building it without the financing in place. He was just paying for it out of pocket," Harris said. "Then the economy trashed and funding for that kind of project disappeared."
Last month, a 4th Judicial District Court judge ordered that the 11-story hotel be sold at a foreclosure sale Oct. 20 to pay Flintco's unsatisfied legal claim, according to the Gazette article.
Construction on the hotel, which began in April 2008, is about 70 percent complete, according to the article.
Harris said it is inaccurate to simply say the hotel company walked away from the development.
"I disagree with the characterization that we've abandoned it or walked away from it. We've been working on it for years, and we're still involved in the process," he said, noting JQH Hotels will be working with Flintco through the foreclosure to help handle the hotel's sale.
Harris said that as far as he or anyone in the company he has spoken with knows, the Colorado Springs hotel project marks the first time any of Hammons' companies have failed to complete a hotel that is already under construction.
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