City councilwoman Elbra Wedgeworth tells GlobeSt.com that over the years, the motel, formerly called the Executive Motel, has been a huge bane for the Denver Police Department.
However, the area around the hotel at Colfax and Milwaukee Street, which Morreale renamed as the All Inn, is becoming almost as trendy as LoDo, with about a half dozen restaurants in the area--including Mezcal, co-owned by Morreale, the $200 million redevelopment of the old Mercy Hospital site, and about two blocks from the St. Charles Town Co.'s redevelopment of the Lowenstein Theatre.
Morreale purchased the motel by buying various liens on the property out of foreclosure. The Kim family, originally from South Korea, had about $2.4 million in debts and Morreale bought it for about $2.1 million or $2.2 million. Asked how much he will spend revitalizing it, Morreale tells GlobeSt.com: "a lot."
He tells GlobeSt.com that his role model on a national scale is Ian Schrager, who in 1977 co-founded the well-known Studio 54 nightclub in New York City. In more recent years, Schrager has taken a number of scruffy hotels in places such as New York City, Los Angeles and in Miami and turned them into some of the hottest boutique hotels in the city.
"It's funny," Morreale tells GlobeSt.com while touring the hotel development. "I tell my friends that I bought this hotel, and they 'say where is again? What side of Colfax?' It's like it disappears. But look at its size. It sits on three quarters of an acre."
As part of his first phase, he plans to re-open a bar on the ground floor of the hotel called Perry's, which he says closed about two decades ago. He says it would cost a "small fortune" to replace the original '70s-style motif of the restaurant, which is still in excellent shape. The bar had been used for storage since closing. Also surprising is that all of the breakers still worked. "All we needed were light bulbs," he tells GlobeSt.com.
The 56-room hotel on the top is now still being run by the Kim family. Long-range, Morreale's plans are to renovate the entire site. "I could try to throw out a cost of $200 or $300 per sf, but I don't really know at this point," he tells GlobeSt.com. "It depends on what we do. At some point I may want to add some rooms; the site is certainly large enough. And the area desperately needs more parking, so we might try to donate a portion of our surface parking lot and have the other neighboring businesses agree to pay for a parking structure that will serve the entire area. We'll just have to see."
And much like Schrager, Morreale may not be satisfied with one hotel. "Sure, if this works, I would probably try to duplicate it someplace else," Morreale tells GlobeSt.com "But along Colfax, between Colorado Boulevard and Broadway, there aren't as many hotels like this available as you might think. I know, because I've looked." However, he notes are other old, infill hotels along West Colfax, North Speer, and Federal Boulevard, which eventually could be redeveloped.
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