Denver’s middle-aged nostalgics have blurry memories of a place called Rockbar — a debauched, dancy dive, with floors as sticky as glue, housed inside the All Inn Motel on East Colfax Avenue.
The memory-making hipster bar shuttered in 2012, the same year the iPhone 5 came out and Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney. And the All Inn Motel itself closed in 2022.
Ever since, the building has looked like a hot spot for vandalism and squatters. But that won’t be the case for long. Over the next fourteen months, the All Inn Motel will be turned into the All Inn Hotel — a fancier future for the same building.
Changes to the All Inn Motel have been promised for years.
Back in 2016, Brian Toerber bought the place, hoping to turn it into micro-apartments. But the city wanted him to turn it into a hotel, he said.
And he eventually realized the city might be right.
“If the city really wants this, and the neighborhood really wants it as a hotel, we’ll figure it out,” Toerber said in an interview. “It took eight years to figure it out. The pandemic didn’t help.”
The area is a hotel desert, he noted. With City Park, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the City Park Golf Course, the Botanic Gardens and Park Hill nearby, people need somewhere to stay.
“Some of the oldest neighborhoods in Denver don't have a place to send people when they come to town, right?” Toerber said.
Even after that realization, it’s taken years to get the project on track.
In 2019, through Inspire Investment Group, Toerber submitted plans to the city to rehab the All Inn. They hoped to bring retail, a restaurant and a second building that would have included more hotel rooms and a community space.
Toerber contacted the Denver Urban Renewal Authority for support in 2020. And in 2022, Denver City Council approved the redevelopment after squabbling over whether it should be housing or a hotel.
Toerber and his partners have raced to secure investment over the past two years, even as the building’s fallen into further disrepair. Community amenities, like that second building with more rooms and a community space, were scrapped in a modified version of the plan that city council approved in 2023.
But now, Toerber is finally ready to get to work.
Over the next 14 months, the All Inn Motel will be rebooted as the All Inn Hotel.
This week, Inspire Investment Group broke ground on the project.
Though Rockbar will be a fading memory, the All Inn Hotel will now boast a restaurant and lobby bar and an outdoor pool for both guests and community members. The boutique hotel will include 54 rooms, with rates expected to hit just over $200 a night. The project’s budget is $22 million.
When it opens, the rehabbed building will be operated by Life House Hotels. Steven Waters, the owner of Run for the Roses and Take Care Brands Hospitality, will oversee the food and drinks.
Maximalist Experience Design is taking charge of the interior decoration, and there will be sticky floors no more.
“There will never be another Rockbar,” explained Abigail Plaintier, the company’s founder and member of the All Inn Hotel owners group, in a statement. “This will be something completely different, a nod to the past with our own twist on the mid mod era.”
Kevin Beaty contributed reporting to this article.
Editor’s note: This article was updated Sept. 21, 2024 at 3:18 p.m. to correct the spelling of the “All Inn.” Turns out it’s a pun!
