A seven-story, 181-room extended stay hotel to be built by arguably Colorado Springs’ biggest real estate developer, in partnership with a Denver company that owns and operates dozens of hotels and entertainment concepts nationwide, would be the centerpiece of a new, $100 million-plus development project in downtown’s trendy New South End.

Norwood Development Group of the Springs and Denver-based Sage Hospitality Group have proposed the Catbird, to be built on Norwood-owned land on the northwest corner of Cascade and Moreno avenues, according to a proposal submitted to the city’s Urban Renewal Authority.

The hotel would go up across the street from Norwood’s 178-unit Mae on Cascade apartments and a block east of Weidner Field, the multipurpose outdoor stadium that opened in April 2021 and is home to the Colorado Springs Switchbacks, concerts and other events.

The Catbird also would join bars and restaurants on the nearby redeveloped Trolley Building block on South Tejon Street, as well as other businesses, residences and hotels that now populate the New South End — a multiblock area that’s generally southeast and southwest of Vermijo and Cascade avenues.

“Certainly this is another feather in the cap for the New South End and will truly be an anchor alongside the other great restaurants, apartments and entertainment spots in that area, not the least of which is Weidner Field,” Susan Edmondson, president and CEO of the Downtown Partnership advocacy group, said via email.

As proposed, the new hotel would be modeled after Sage’s existing, 165-room Catbird that opened in 2021 in Denver’s RiNo (River North) Art District, an area of north Denver popular for its art galleries and studios, restaurants, bars and brewpubs, among other amenities and attractions.

The Catbird would anchor a 2.61-acre, irregularly shaped urban renewal district that Norwood has proposed in an area bounded roughly by Cimarron, Rio Grande, Sahwatch and Tejon streets, the proposal submitted to the Urban Renewal Authority shows. If nearby property owners join the urban renewal district, the area would grow to 5.71 acres, the proposal states.

As described and shown on the Catbird’s website, the hotel is an eclectic take on the extended-stay hotel concept.

Studios and one-bedroom suites appear to be more like furnished apartments or even urban lofts, with full kitchens, multifunctional furniture, flat-screen TVs, raised beds, microwaves and cooking supplies, among other amenities.

The pet-friendly hotel in Denver also has a rooftop terrace with a stage, amphitheater, yard games, firepits and lounge seating, along with a rooftop bar and restaurant and rooftop hot tubs, the Catbird website shows. The rooftop, with 3,300 square feet of event space, has a greenhouse tent that allows  the roof to remain open year-round.

“If you’re familiar with Catbird, it really is more than a hotel — it’s a place that locals like to hang,” Edmondson said. “Sage Hospitality has such a great reputation, and I think it’ll be really positive to have them in our downtown market. Even though we’ve added several new hotel properties in recent years, we are still playing catch-up. We are still underserved in downtown hotel rooms for a city our size.”

Over the last few years, downtown Colorado Springs has added a 261-room Marriott hotel that carries the hotelier’s SpringHill Suites and Element brands, a 120-room Hyatt Place, the 168-room Hilton Garden Inn and the 80-bed Kinship Landing. They’ve joined the historic 273-room Antlers, the 128-room Mining Exchange and the 80-room Holiday Inn Express, among other downtown hotels.

In addition to Norwood, Niebur Development, the Springs-based company that redeveloped the more than century-old former trolley car barn on South Tejon Street into a restaurant and entertainment hub that now includes Atomic Cowboy, Fat Sully’s Pizza, Denver Biscuit Co., Dos Santos Tacos and the CO.A.T.I. food hall, among others, has plans of its own.

On property he owns on the Cascade Avenue side of the trolley car barn block, Niebur Development owner Joe Niebur plans to “transform the old brick service buildings … into a mix of uses that include additional restaurants and entertainment uses,” according to the Norwood proposal to the Urban Renewal Authority.

At the same time, a surface parking lot at Cascade and Moreno avenues owned by Niebur Development “will be redeveloped into a multi-story mixed-use building that includes additional ground floor restaurants, retail and event space.”

“Total project costs of known development efforts are expected to exceed $100 (million),” according to Norwood’s proposal to the Urban Renewal Authority.

Presumably, that figure includes at least the new Catbird hotel and Niebur’s redevelopment project.

“Other adjacent parcels along Moreno Avenue, Sahwatch Street and (West) Rio Grande Street that are owned by entities affiliated with Norwood Development Group are included in the (proposed urban renewal district),” Norwood said in its project outline to the Urban Renewal Authority. “It is the intent of Norwood to develop these parcels in future phases of the overall project, but currently, no specific redevelopment program has been proposed.”

Neither Norwood nor Sage Hospitality were immediately available to elaborate about the hotel, though they said they would comment after Wednesday’s Urban Renewal Authority meeting, during which the panel will get a first look at details of the redevelopment project. The meeting takes place at 11 a.m. at City Hall, 107 N. Nevada Ave. in downtown, or via a Zoom meeting link that can be accessed on the authority’s agenda.

Niebur, the head of Niebur Development, also couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.

Norwood and Sage say the Catbird is in the planning and pre-planning development phase. The companies intend to submit formal development plans to Colorado Springs in late October or early November, with construction starting in the second quarter of 2025. Niebur intends to move forward on his projects in the next three years.

The new Urban Renewal District requires the approval of the Colorado Springs City Council.

Norwood, in business since the 1970s, is the big dog of residential and commercial real estate in Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak region.

Among its many projects, Norwood developed shopping centers such as the east-side First & Main Town Center on Powers Boulevard and InterQuest Marketplace in northern Colorado Springs; the 13-story downtown Plaza of the Rockies South office tower; apartments such as Mae on Cascade and 333 ECO, also in downtown; and sprawling residential subdivisions like the northeast side Wolf Ranch. A decade ago, Norwood bought 18,000 acres of the massive Banning Lewis Ranch, giving it control of a parcel that makes up roughly the eastern one-third of the Springs; the company is now moving forward on its development after years of studying the property’s best uses.

Founded 40 years ago, Sage Hospitality owns or operates properties such as the Rally Hotel at McGregor Square, the Oxford Hotel and the Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Denver. Its hotels and restaurants include properties in Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Portland, Ore., and Washington D.C., among other markets, its website shows.

Norwood’s outline of the proposed New South End projects says an urban renewal district is critical financially for them to become a reality, according to its proposal to the Urban Renewal Authority.

An urban renewal designation allows future increases in property and sales tax revenue generated by the new development — commonly referred to as tax increment financing — to be earmarked to help developers pay their costs of sidewalks, utility upgrades and other public improvements.

That financing tool serves as an incentive for developers to invest in and make over blighted areas that otherwise would stand fallow.

“Without the pledge of property and sales tax increment, the project is not financially feasible and would remain in its current and deteriorating condition,” Norwood says in the proposal submitted to the Urban Renewal Authority.

Along with the new urban renewal district, Norwood has submitted a separate redevelopment plan.

In effect Norwood wants to re-start the clock for an existing urban renewal district approved in 2018. That district covers about 82 acres of southwest downtown — an area Norwood has dubbed Park Union. Norwood is a majority land owner in the area, which is bounded roughly by Interstate 25, Cimarron Street and Colorado and Cascade avenues.

An urban renewal district lasts 25 years, during which time revenue generated by new property and sales taxes in the area is used to pay back developers who’ve front-ended the cost of public improvements.

In the case of the Park Union urban renewal district and a separate business improvement district, little new development — other than the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum — has taken place in the area since the 2018 urban renewal designation. Norwood cited fluctuating interest rates, soaring construction costs and the COVID-19 pandemic as factors that have delayed most development in the area.

Now, Norwood wants to move forward with a 12-story office building in the area, to be called 30 West, and a 213-unit luxury multifamily project called Residences at Park Union.

Because six years have gone by with little new revenue-generating development having taken place in the district, Norwood wants a new urban renewal district that would tap a full 25 years’ worth of tax increment financing generated by the area.