Gaylord plays incentive hardball in Colorado

It'll be all for us or nothing for you...

Gaylord Entertainment Senior Vice President Bennett Westbrook this week told Colorado economic development officials that a consultant's recommendation to cut $40 million in state subsidies to its planned $800 million resort outside Denver would mean the end of the project [2]. The sticking point is a projection for how much out-of-state spending the 1,500-room complex would generate.

Wellington Webb, an EDC member and former Denver mayor, pressed Westbrook on why the $385 million subsidy is more than twice as high as any amount of public funding that Gaylord has received for any previous project. Westbrook responded that the cost of building a hotel has skyrocketed in eight years and that a project of this size — roughly 2 million square feet — “is not feasible unless you get a significant amount of public finance.”