SpringHill Suites Denver Downtown at MSU Denver and the attached Hospitality Learning Center (HLC) have been certified LEED Gold for New Construction by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).
Managed by Denver’s Sage Hospitality, the 150-suite hotel is metro Denver’s first LEED Gold hotel. A public-private partnership between MSU Denver and Sage Hospitality created the hotel that opened in 2012, as well as the HLC-the first of its kind in the Rocky Mountain region and one of only 11 in the United States.
The 28,000-square-foot HLC is an educational facility that combines classrooms with interactive laboratories to provide an experiential curriculum for the university’s more than 600 hospitality, tourism, and events students. Amenities include a sensory analysis laboratory for wine and food tastings and a cellar management laboratory, which boasts a wine storage cellar of more than 3,100 bottles.
“When we laid out our vision for this facility, we never imagined the SpringHill Suites Denver Downtown Hotel would become the first LEED Gold hotel in the Denver metro area,” says MSU Denver president Stephen Jordan. “As we prepare our students to be future hotel management leaders in Denver and beyond, it’s rewarding to know that they are also learning about corporate social responsibility and the importance of sustaining the environment.”
The hotel and HLC earned a total of 62 LEED points from the USGBC, including those for water efficiency, innovative design, and sustainable site and materials selection. More than 90 percent of regularly occupied areas offer natural day lighting, reducing the need for artificial lighting. The facility also offers the use of only high efficiency plumbing fixtures and low VOC paints and flooring, as well as recycling in guestrooms, classrooms, and offices.
Nearly 20 percent of the building was constructed using recycled materials and 25 percent of the total building materials were locally sourced. More than 78 percent of material waste from the construction was recycled. Now, all compostable food from the hotel’s banquet and catering department, as well as from the student classes, is composted. Additionally, the housekeeping and F&B departments use only green, natural cleaning products, including vinegar.

The SpringHill Suites Denver Downtown and the HLC were developed by Mortenson Development along with design-builder Mortenson Construction’s Denver office. Denver’s RNL was the design architect and architect of record for the hotel and led the LEED administration and documentation process, while locally based JG Johnson Architects was the associate architect and hotel interiors architect.
