Hilco contacted 190 possible buyers for Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. Thirty-two signed nondisclosure agreements, and five toured the park. After more than a dozen rounds of bidding, the winning group came out ahead by $100,000. The Denver Post reported that the final number was $14.8 million.
The same park sold for $30 million in 2020, according to that report. In six years the price fell by about half, and the court record explains the drop through attendance. The park's founder thinks attendance is capped by something outside the park entirely: the number of beds in Glenwood Springs.
That is the useful part for anyone underwriting a hotel, an attraction, a restaurant, or retail space in this town. Glenwood's room count limits more than one amusement park. Hotel owners collect it as higher rates, and businesses that depend on visitor volume run into it as a cap.
Where the deal stood at the Oct. 13 filing
Chief Bankruptcy Judge Kimberly Tyson approved the sale to GVC Glenwood LLC in late September. Gondola Ventures, a Seattle company, controls 80% of the buyer, and founder Steve Beckley holds 20%. The Post Independent's Oct. 1 report said the park was still under contract pending the final purchase.
On Oct. 13, judgment creditors filed a motion for a limited stay pending appeal. The filing stated that the sale had not closed. It asks the court to stay the release of certain insider claims, but not the closing itself. The case docket sets an Oct. 27 deadline for objections. For now, $14.8 million is a court-approved price on a deal that hasn't closed. Even so, it's the most heavily tested valuation of a Glenwood tourism business in years, because a court examined it line by line.
The bankruptcy grew out of litigation that remains on appeal. That litigation explains why the park was sold. What the price says about the market is a separate question.
Four valuations of one park
The court record contains several prices for the same asset, and the reasons they differ are what matter here.
| Valuation | Source | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| $30 million | 2020 sale | Investors expecting 300,000 annual visitors by 2025 |
| $35 million to $50 million | Board member testimony | About $5 million of 2021 EBITDA at a 7x to 10x multiple |
| $35 million | Objecting creditors' expert | Data drawn from chain amusement parks |
| $14.8 million | Court-approved auction price | Marketed sale with more than a dozen bidding rounds |
According to the Denver Post, current board member Robert Kramer testified that "in 2021, the park did about $5 million of EBITDA." He said a buyer at the time would have paid "no less than seven and no more than nine or ten multiple." The judge rejected the $35 million expert figure because it relied on chain parks such as Six Flags.
That objection is the standard appraisal discipline for a one-of-a-kind asset: comparables only work if the markets they come from are comparable. A chain park draws from a metro area. This is the only mountaintop amusement park in the country, and it draws from whoever is already in Glenwood Springs overnight.
The visitor count that never arrived
The 2020 investors expected 300,000 annual visitors by 2025. The Denver Post reported that attendance never topped 251,000 and came in at 211,000 in 2025. That's about 70% of the plan. Even the best year fell about 16% short of the figure behind the 2020 price.
The judge wasn't persuaded the park is worth even what those investors paid in 2020. Beckley's explanation for the shortfall points outside the park: he believes Glenwood Springs doesn't have enough hotel space to reach 300,000.
He is a 20% buyer at the new price, so the claim is self-interested in a sense. It can still be checked, and the city's own lodging numbers are consistent with it.
Fewer rooms, higher rates
The city's business resource book, updated September 2025, counts 16 hotels with about 1,500 guest rooms, plus 145 permitted short-term rentals. The hotel count has shrunk in recent years. In 2024 the Post Independent reported that two West Glenwood motels, the Caravan Inn and the Rodeway Inn, had been converted to long-term affordable housing within the previous two years. The reporting does not agree on how many rooms that removed. The 2024 report described each conversion as roughly 80 units, while 2022 coverage of RFTA's Rodeway Inn purchase counted the Rodeway at 42 units, so the combined loss falls somewhere between about 120 and 160 rooms.
The city reports performance numbers through its Tourism Board. According to the Aug. 13, 2026 Tourism Board minutes, Glenwood hotels did the following in January through June 2026:
- Occupancy reached 66.8%, up 1.1 percentage points
- Average daily rate rose 5.4% to $152.93
- RevPAR rose 7.1% to $102.14
- Total hotel revenue rose 1.9% even though available room supply fell 4.9%
June 2026 was the strongest month of the half, at 81.1% occupancy and a $182.27 average rate. Over the same six months, RevPAR fell 3.3% statewide and 6.8% in Colorado ski destinations. These are the most recent hotel figures the city has published. Its September and October Tourism Board agendas list data presentations but have no posted minutes yet.
These numbers show what a constrained room supply does. With fewer rooms, the remaining hotels filled a slightly larger share of them and charged more for each one. Hotel owners in Glenwood had a good first half of 2026, and they got it from rate. Glenwood Caverns can't benefit the same way. A park that needs more people through the gate gains nothing from a higher nightly rate down the hill, and the guest paying $182 a night in June is one of a fixed number of guests.
There is one signal running the other way. The board reported that accommodations tax collections were up 23.7% year to date, well ahead of hotel revenue growth. It suggested the gap may reflect short-term rentals, properties outside the CoStar sample, and online travel agencies that hadn't yet remitted. If some overnight demand is moving into rooms the hotel data doesn't track, the effective bed count may be somewhat larger than 1,500. The board didn't settle the question. The same minutes also report July 2026 foot traffic about 4% below July 2025.
150 keys arriving in 2027
The only large addition in view is the Home2 Suites by Hilton at Glenwood Meadows. City Council approved it unanimously in July 2024: four stories, 96,000 square feet, and 150 rooms on Lot 10C, next to the Courtyard and Residence Inn. As of the city's Oct. 12 construction update, it is under construction, with work expected to run through 2026 and the first half of 2027.
At approval, councilors described the project as adding to the town's room inventory while also addressing short-term rental concerns. 150 rooms is about 10% on top of the city's 1,500-room count. That's a meaningful increase, but it is in the same range as the rooms West Glenwood lost to housing conversions, so the town is mostly getting back to where it was. The other recent addition is much smaller: Hotel 1888, a 16-room conversion inside Glenwood Hot Springs Resort's Stone Bath House, which opened in June 2025.
The new Caverns owners are buying at a price that assumes attendance near 2025 levels, and the room supply that would have to grow for attendance to rise again won't change much before mid-2027. That works in their favor if the price is low enough that recent attendance supports it. It works against anyone who prices a Glenwood tourism business on the attendance growth the 2020 buyers assumed.
Underwriting a business that depends on overnight visitors
The Caverns record works as a guide for any Glenwood asset whose revenue depends on overnight visitors. The questions it raises apply to a downtown restaurant building, a retail space near the hot springs, or an attraction:
- Does revenue grow with visitor count or with price? Hotels in the first half of 2026 grew through rate. Businesses that depend on volume have to assume a visitor count that the room supply limits until new rooms open.
- Which comparables match the market? The court rejected chain-park data for a one-of-a-kind mountain asset. The same reasoning applies to using Front Range or resort-town comps to price Glenwood commercial space.
- What year did the seller's projections assume? The 2020 price was built on 300,000 visitors. Ask what visitor count, occupancy, or rate any listing's pro forma depends on, and whether the city's lodging data has ever supported it.
- When does new supply actually open? The Home2 Suites is scheduled for the first half of 2027, not 2026, so any underwriting that needs those rooms should assume the later date.
- How was the price tested? Hilco marketed the park to 190 buyers, and the winning bid prevailed by $100,000. Few mountain commercial deals get that much market exposure, which makes $14.8 million a better reference point than most asking prices.
The sale record also shows what that market exposure cost: Hilco will be paid $666,000 from the proceeds. For a seller, that is the cost of a price nobody can easily argue with.
If you're weighing a hospitality, retail, or attraction property in Glenwood Springs, the room count belongs in the valuation alongside cap rates and comps. Gabe Molnar can help you work out what a property's revenue depends on, how much of it the town's lodging supply can support, and what a defensible price looks like. Let's Connect.
