Regency Student Housing facts for kids
Regency Student Housing is a place where students live while attending college in Denver, Colorado. It is one of three housing options for students at the Auraria Campus in downtown Denver. The building used to be a hotel called the Regency Hotel. A local investor named V. Robert (Rob) Salazar bought the building in 2004. Now, it provides homes for students from three schools: Community College of Denver (CCD), Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver), and the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver).
The Regency is located at 3900 Elati Street, about two miles from the Auraria Campus. It was the first student housing community for the campus. Other student housing options nearby include the Campus Village Apartments and the Inn at Auraria.
Contents
The History of the Regency Building
How the Regency Hotel Began
The Regency Hotel was built by real estate developers Marvin and Victor Lederman. Construction started in 1968, and Richard DeGette designed the building. It was planned to be a big place for meetings and events, like a convention center. The hotel had many features, including banquet rooms, meeting spaces, and areas for car shows. It also had four restaurants, three bars, a disco, and both indoor and outdoor swimming pools. There were even tennis courts! The hotel was famous for its large gold dome, called the Piccadilly Rotunda. In the early 1970s, the hotel was very popular. Even famous singer Elvis Presley stayed in the top floor apartment several times. People said the hotel kept a piano there just for him.
Changes and Challenges for the Hotel
After a successful start, the hotel began to be less popular. Later, a man named Art Cormier, who was known for owning a very large laundromat in Denver, opened a popular nightclub there. He bought the hotel in 1999, planning to fix it up. In 2002, a fire caused damage to many rooms. Because of safety concerns, the city closed some parts of the hotel in 2003. By April 2004, a judge decided the entire hotel was unsafe, and everyone living there had to leave quickly.
Becoming Student Housing
In 2004, Rob Salazar's company bought the hotel for $6.4 million. At that time, it had 410 rooms. An architecture firm called Architectural Workshop helped turn the old hotel into student housing. They even won awards for their work in renovating the building. The Regency Student Housing Community officially opened in the fall of 2005. It started with 300 beds for students and added 400 more within a year. Later, in 2012–13, a new building called The Villas at Regency was added. This new building has 360 beds in 120 separate units.
The Regency is open to both undergraduate and graduate students from the Auraria Campus schools. It is managed by Auraria Student Housing at the Regency. In 2015, the housing community won a legal case against another student housing complex. This case was about whether new students at the University of Colorado Denver had to live at a specific housing location.
