Rossonian Hotel - Restart

McKissack is providing Owner’s Representative and Design Management services for the Construction phase to assist Rossonian, LLC in developing, implementing, and constructing the redevelopment of the iconic Rossonian Hotel. The restoration goal is to restore the Rossonian Hotel in a way that preserves the rich jazz and African American culture of the community. The preliminary design calls for a ground-floor restaurant, a music venue, and an eight-story addition with a total of 136 boutique guestrooms. Additional hotel rooms and a food court will provide expansion through the adjacent Hoover Building. McKissack is also working with the architect and hotel management firm, to inform the design, including construction of a model room as well as sourcing of FF&E and OS&E. This landmark 21,000 SF building, built in 1912, with an addition built in 1994, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. The Rossonian Hotel was one of the most important jazz clubs between St. Louis and Los Angeles from the late 1930s to the early 1960s. The Rossonian jazz club was the historical epicenter of the “Harlem of the West”. Jazz greats such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, George Shearing, and Dinah Washington stayed at the Rossonian Hotel and entertained at the Rossonian Lounge between major engagements in Denver or in route to other cities. In addition to housing nationally recognized performers, the Rossonian building and site at the intersection of Welton, Washington, and 27th, was locally a physical, social, and commercial center of the Five Points community, the primary Black community of Denver since the 1920s. Denver’s Five Points neighborhood is one of the city’s oldest African American neighborhoods as the 1920s saw a transition to a Black majority in the Five Points area which has continued today.