Limelight Hotel, conference center slated to open in 2025
BOULDER>> The grand opening of a $130 million hotel and conference center capable of hosting 1,000-person events on the University of Colorado campus is set for Aug. 21, 2025.
The hotel and conference center, called the Limelight Hotel Boulder, will have 254 rooms, 25,000 square feet of meeting space, a 15,000-square-foot ballroom, a 5,000-square-foot outdoor event lawn and a 585 stall parking garage. The Limelight Hotel is a collaboration between CU and the city that is developed, owned and will be operated by Aspen Hospitality.
“Our incentive for building this was to be able to host academic and research conferences,” Derek Silva, CU associate vice chancellor for business strategy, said. “Those are things that draw a lot of interest to the community.”
Silva said the hotel and conference center will be able to host academic and research conferences of up to about 1,000 people. He envisions it hosting anything from family reunions, weddings and corporate or nonprofit meetings to events surrounding commencement, homecoming and parent’s weekend.
The Limelight Hotel, located on the CU campus on the northeast corner of Broadway and University Avenue, will be six stories tall and all-electric.
“That’s a key sustainability aspect because as the grid becomes cleaner, this project will become cleaner,” Silva said. “There are very few electric hotels in this country right now, and I don’t know if there are any other large hotels of this size that have gone all electric.”
Construction on the hotel began on Jan 27, 2023. The groundbreaking on the parking garage was in December 2023, and vertical construction of the structure is underway now.
The topping-out ceremony, held when the last beam is placed during construction, is anticipated for the fall of 2024. A soft opening will be on Aug. 15, 2025, and the grand opening is planned for Aug. 21, 2025.
The hotel will also have a public courtyard, restaurant, retail space and rooftop bar and pool. The goal is for the hotel to be a destination for high-profile events in a space that does not exist currently outside of Denver.
“That will draw a lot of that type of business here to Boulder, which will have a knockdown effect to the Hill, downtown and the economy of Boulder,” Silva said.
Updates on the Limelight Hotel and plans for two new CU residence halls were presented during a Zoom webinar on Monday. About 100 people registered for the call, including City Council members, Boulder County commissioners, members of Boulder High School and the broader Boulder community along with CU students, faculty members and staffers.
Updates on two residence hall projects were presented by JT Allen, the director of Housing Facilities Services. Residence One and Residence Two are two new residential housing projects at CU aimed to expand housing for nonfirst-year and graduate students.
“We envision 4,400 to 6,000 new on-campus beds needed over the next 15 to 30 years,” Allen said. “Residence One and Residence Two are the first step in this approach to on-campus housing.”
Both projects are located on opposite corners of 19th Street and Athens Street near Boulder High School. CU has existing buildings at the sites, built between 1942 and 1964, that will be demolished to build the new residence halls.
Residence One will be a 332-bed apartment building. CU finished abatement, or removing any hazards including asbestos, and is starting construction this spring. It is slated to open in the fall of 2026 and have studios and one-, two-, four- and fivebedroom apartments with single- and double-bedroom options.
It will have study rooms, community lounges, a café and convenience store, grab-and-go dining and a UPS store that will be open to the public.
Residence Two will be a 350-bed apartment building, and construction is scheduled to start in the spring of 2025 with an opening date in fall 2027. About 55% of Residence Two will be apartment-style with one, two and four bedrooms with single rooms. The other 45% will be a new style of living with pods of 10 and 12 single bedrooms that share a large living room and kitchen. It will have a multipurpose room, meditation room, meeting rooms, grocery market and café and Residence Life offices. Residence One will be a mix of four, five and six floors. Residence Two is still in design but likely will be a similar size.
Residence One and Two will ensure on-campus housing does not decrease in capacity while CU renovates its existing dorms. Farrand Hall will be renovated and offline beginning in the summer of 2026 and reopening in fall 2028.