Bar assignment

Tucked away in the corner of a shopping center on 104th and Federal, sandwiched between an H&R Block and a nail salon is a small store of fantasy. In it you will find everything from walking robots to space rangers and mystic wizards. It’s called Free Time Comics Inc., and I’ve been going there almost every week for over five years.

Which is long enough to be on a first name basis with the manager.

Mike Wells looked up when he heard the door jingle. “Hey,” he said, smiling. I nodded my greeting and looked around. The walls were lined with shelves of colorful works of art, comics covered in protective plastic. They almost covered the whole store, some of them priced near the thousands, making for unique wallpaper along with posters and toys. It’s quite a collection.
Wells, along with his father and brother, named their store Free Time Comics because it was supposed to be a hobby of theirs, a side business that they would manage in their free time. It did really well and now supports Mike’s entire family.

“We were thinking of changing its name to ‘Full Time Comics,’” Wells said.

And it really is a family run business. I tried asking for an application there once and got turned down. Wells explained that they’ve never hired anyone because they didn’t really need anymore help. His whole family runs things; even his retired mother and 11-year-old son ring up costumers from time to time.

I finished looking at the walls and walked to the counter Wells was standing at. I asked if he could give me my monthly favorites he keeps in a box for me. He says no problem and searches under the desk for my comics.

Behind him is a black shelf filled with superhero merchandise. I saw the same Superman piggy bank I bought from there about a year ago, along with assorted toys and lunchboxes. I reminded myself that I was 20 and had no need for a Batman alarm clock before he reappeared and handed me my stack of comics.

I flipped through each one in anticipation as Christian music played over the speakers. The store was open every day but Sunday, just like the Chick-fil-A across the street. It was so Well’s family could go to church and spend time together, something I really admired except on Sundays when I needed my Aquaman fix.

I thanked Mike and continued to look around the store. I was forced to squeeze past a somewhat large patron who was flipping through a graphic novel. I had seen him here before and remembered one day he came in wearing a plastic green hat from St. Patrick’s Day and a toy Riddler cane from Batman Forever. I tended to avoid him from then on, but he was blocking the way to the posters.

Currently, only four of the seven posters line my wall in my room. I didn’t have room for the rest since I share a studio with my brother who also buys posters.

I didn’t see any that I liked or didn’t already have, so I continued back to the register. I usually spend around $40 to $50 a week there. This week it was only in the 30’s.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I signed the receipt. We finalized the transaction and I headed for the door, saying thank you and goodbye. He said he’d see me next week.

Motel Hell, my reaction

Whoa. I live on the twelvth floor, the same floor "Motel Hell" writer David Holthouse stayed on.

It's interesting, my girlfriend's friend says she used to work at The Regency, and that her mom was the manager. When I told her about the article, she said that it wasn't true, that there was no Lee. If that's true, I wonder if the Westword was sued.

She did say the elevators were actually pretty bad. I told her that they aren't too much better now. We do have buttons that light up when pushed and phones in the elevators, but sometimes they will open to empty halls and drop pretty quick. Not see-my-life-flash-before-my-eyes quick or even uncomfortably quick, but just quick. Maybe they're just more effecient.

It's weird that they say Elvis' ghost is here, because I've heard that sometimes residents here will get knocks on their doors and no one will be there when they answer. It hasn't happened to me, so I'm wondering if it's just some punk residents pulling pranks as college kids tend to do.

I have heard the "Devil" story, where the man's boot falls off while on the bull, revealing a hoof. Everyone at The Regency has heard that. In fact, there's a MySpace profile someone here created called El Diablo. His "About Me" section reads:

"i was born from the grinding of souls, betwixed earth and flesh. i found the basement of the regency when i was but a weeeeeee chap. thence is where i will dwel for all of eternity."

It's actually kind of funny.

All in all, it looks like The Regency turned out for the better. The place really is nice now and nothing like the place described in Holthouse's story. I actually like living here, and I think it'll stay a great place for Auraria students for a long time.

Motel Hell, part 3

The Conclusion:

"Nobody goes to the extreme measures that we go through to ensure that we have never had a drug problem and never will," Cormier continues. "You don't see meth labs here, because we go through every single room of this entire property on a weekly basis. And if anyone's staying over a week, we go through and check every single thing in their room. We go through their dressers. We go through their suitcases. We look under the beds, in the closets. We do a thorough investigation, and we have proven it not only to ourselves, but to any official from any agency, that we have not had and do not have and will not have a drug problem in this hotel."

Such repeated assurances may be intended for prospective buyers as well as public officials.

This January, Cormier announced plans to sell the hotel to the highest bidder. According to his California auctioneer, bidding on the hotel will be closed March 20. Cormier refuses to reveal how many bids he has received or the size of the offers. A brochure put out by Accelerated Marketing Group, the firm Cormier hired to manage the sale of the hotel, entices with this pitch: "Located at the gateway to downtown Denver and Coors Field, the Regency Hotel offers the savvy investor an outstanding opportunity to either upgrade the existing property or to redevelop. With approximately 1,600 feet of freeway frontage and over 235,000 cars passing by daily, the site offers excellent access, visibility, and recognition. Currently the property is being used as an extended stay, budget hotel and concert facility."

While Ortega would like to see the Regency under new management, she's not getting her hopes up over the announced auction.

"I don't think he's going to sell unless the price is just right, and I don't think he's going to get a price that's going to make him happy, because he's rolling in dough over there," she says. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is the first of many times we see that property put up for auction by Mr. Cormier."

Cormier swears he's serious about selling. "My opinion is it will be sold, and someone will be the proud owner of the Regency," he says. But he plans to stay in the music business. "I don't think the Mexican-music scene and Art working together will ever cease in Denver," he adds. "When the hotel is sold, I'll simply relocate to another metro Denver location and continue to do the same thing."

It was nine at night, and I was in my room on the Regency's twelfth floor, looking down over one of the two gigantic Los Caporales parking lots, where four or five diesel-powered pickups were spinning doughnuts and drag racing in the freshly fallen snow. Dozens of smaller pickups, lowriders with neon blue and pink accents, were parked in rows along the edges of the parking lot, their lights turned on to illuminate the doughnut-spinning and drag racing, Rebel Without a Cause style.

Wary of the elevators now that Lee was off duty, I walked seven floors down through the stinking stairwells and came out on the fifth floor, where the hallway trash can was filled with pizza boxes, diapers and an unopened package of rotten ground beef.

I took an elevator the rest of the way down. Five minutes and $15 later, I was standing in the scarecrow position while a Los Caporales bouncer patted me down for weapons and contraband. A stenciled sign above the entrance to the nightclub read, "No gangsters, no baggy pants. Playerz 05, 13, 18 SouthPole not allowed," a message to street gangs whose members are barred.

While I was searched, I watched through a window as bouquets of young women in slinky spaghetti-strap dresses, wearing no jackets in spite of the biting wind and swirling flakes, trotted on high heels toward the entrance to the gold dome. The bouncer patted me on the shoulder twice, my sign I was free to go. I went into the ballroom, where tequila shots are served with tiny packets of salt and fat, juicy wedges of lime. Fiberglass sculptures of stallions lined the dance floor. It was still early, but there were a few couples moving to the music, the women hooking their thumbs in their dates' belts between songs as they stood close, waiting for the music to resume.

I grabbed a seat at a bar next to a lithe young woman wearing a backward beige beret. She introduced herself as Angelica Romero, age 22, born and raised in Denver. "I don't really fit in here," she said. And she didn't. She was the only female among hundreds in the place to sport any sort of headwear, just as I was one of the few men without a cowboy hat. I asked her why she was there. "I'm fourth-generation Mexican-American, and I'm coming here to get back in touch with my roots," she said. "I want to learn Spanish so bad, and I come here to learn." She shrugged. "It's better than taking a class."

Wherever I went inside Los Caporales, I felt eyes follow me -- which was understandable, since I was the only white guy there who wasn't a cop. There were four of them, off-duties hired by Cormier. They were in uniform, and from what I could tell, three of them spent most of their time in a back corner of the downstairs billiards room talking shop, while the fourth, a portly, white-haired officer, walked a beat between the upstairs and downstairs restrooms.

The stall doors in the basement men's rooms at Los Caporales have been removed, possibly to discourage cocaine snorting. If so, it's not working. Those who wished to indulge simply posted a lookout at the entrance while they dipped car keys into tiny bags of coke. When the lookout saw the cop coming, he barked an alarm, and men flocked from the stalls, sniffling and thumbing glistening white crumbs off their upper lips.

Watching them, I realized I was in Tom Tancredo's vision of hell. Cinnamon-skinned men speaking Spanish, wearing thousand-dollar outfits and doing cocaine in bar bathrooms like they think they're white professionals in LoDo or something, all set to the soundtrack and bouncing accordion riffs.

"Do you like Spanish music?"

The question snapped me from my reverie.

An urban cowboy was in my face. He had one friend behind him. They were drunk and grinning.
He repeated the question.

"I said, do you like Spanish music?"

Sure, I said. I like Spanish music.

"Do you like to get the heinie?"

I gave them a look that said, "The what?"

"The heinie, bro. The beautiful little Mexican girl."

I wasn't sure how I should respond. On the one hand, I didn't want them to think I was there to pick up Mexican women. On the other, I didn't want them to think I didn't like Mexican women.

I settled for "Maybe not tonight."

"Are you a faggot?"

I didn't answer.

"Do you like to dance to Spanish music?"

Oh, shit, I thought, is this guy asking me to dance?

"I'm not very good," I said.

"That's because you don't have a hat."

His friend chortled.

"And you don't have a belt," he continued. "That's why I asked you if you're a faggot. Faggots don't have belts, so you can take their pants off easy."

My interrogator had on a hell of a belt -- embroidered cowhide with a silver buckle the size of a serving tray. He kept up his critique of my fashion sense.

"You need new boots."

I was wearing scuffed-up Doc Martens. He was wearing full-quill ostrich-skin shitkickers dyed flaming orange to match his pearl-buttoned shirt. He pointed down at his feet for emphasis.

"Five hundred dollars," he said. "You need to get some of these if you want to get the heinie."

He and his buddy left, laughing all the way. I had just been thoroughly dissed by a dude with flaming-orange cowboy boots. I took this as my cue to go back to the hotel. There are stairways and passages that lead from the lobby of the Regency to the gold-domed conference center, but on weekends, they are roped off and guarded to keep out the riffraff.

So I walked outside, through the snow, transitioning between the Regency's dual universes of hot spot and squalor. Back in the pool area, I crossed paths with a kid who looked like Eminem come back from the grave -- buzz-cut, peroxide-blond hair, pale, gaunt face, dark crescents of lethargy beneath dull blue eyes. He asked me if I had a "point," a needle that I would trade for a taste of black-tar heroin. Then he asked for fifty cents for the bus. Then he muttered about searching out the syringe a traveling companion had stashed on the tower's tenth or maybe eleventh floor.

I gave him the only good advice I thought he might follow: Take the stairs.

http://www.westword.com/

Motel Hell, part 2

Part Duex:

Cormier's operation was the subject of numerous disputes with city officials, who claimed the club was the scene of too much violence and allowed underage drinking. Cormier, who is white, countered with charges that officials were illegally discriminating against his predominantly Mexican and Hispanic clientele. In 1997, security cameras in the club captured footage of Westminster police officers apparently breaking into El Fugitivo and then illegally searching the premises while uttering racial slurs. Cormier sued, and in an out-of-court settlement reportedly agreed to surrender his liquor license and close El Fugitivo in exchange for $550,000.

In April 1998, Cormier resurfaced on the music scene, launching a series of wildly popular and profitable Mexican dance nights in the Regency's ballroom and conference center. Hiring the biggest names in ranchera and norteño music, he regularly drew more than 5,000 sharply dressed Mexican-music fans to his club nights every weekend. In June 1999, Cormier bought the hotel for a reported $4.6 million, pledging to put another $5 million into renovations.

"Since I've acquired the Regency Hotel, I've spent millions and millions of dollars on improvements to the facility, making it a safer place for its guests and entertainment clientele, including a new $600,000 fire-alarm system," says Cormier. "When I came, the elevators weren't working at all, and we put a lot of money into getting them running again. They're old, but they're safe. They just haven't figured out the numerical sequence of the floors. Maybe in another 35 years. One of the features of the elevators is the doors open a lot more than they should. But a lot of people say that when the doors open and nobody's getting out, they'll say, 'Elvis just got off the elevator,' because we have the ghost of Elvis Presley here at the Regency. And we have Elvis fans coming into town who stay at the Regency, and they're not the clientele you would see at the nightclub, or someone like Lee. These are people who could stay at the Hyatt Regency or the Adam's Mark just as easily, but they come here to see the ghost of Elvis Presley."

Cormier resides in the former Elvis Presley Suite, a round penthouse atop the Regency's tower. "It has probably one of the nicest views of any high-rise in the city, overlooking Coors Field, the lights of the cityscape and the hustle and bustle of I-25 and I-70," he says. "I appreciate it very much."

Far below are the multitudes of Mexican immigrants who frequent Cormier's tequila-drenched dance nights in the hotel's grand ballroom, which he has rechristened Los Caporales (which, loosely translated, means "bosses of the ranch hands"). The revelry also spills over into the hotel's basement-level conference center, which now holds a mechanical bull and a pool hall. Legend has it that the Devil visits Los Caporales from time to time, appearing as a handsome cowboy. About three years ago, one story goes, the Devil rode the mechanical bull, going faster and faster until there was a flash of light and one of his boots fell off, revealing a hoof. "Everyone screamed," says Cormier, who wasn't there himself.

The Hotel Regency's original discotheque on the same floor, which was initially called Shakespeare's Boogie, is now packed on Friday and Saturday nights with Mexicans in their teens and twenties dancing to Latin-infused techno music of the sort favored by DJs in Sonoran and Chihuahuan border towns.

The cover charge at Los Caporales ranges from $15 to $40, depending upon the star status of the headlining band in the ballroom. The hotel's liquor license allows Cormier to legally serve more than 7,000 people, based upon the huge square footage of the ballroom. Yet very little of the money that Cormier rakes in at the door or from his bar sales appears to have been devoted to restoring the Regency to grandeur or splendor. The vibe inside the hotel's eighteen-story tower and adjoining 230-room expansion is that of a grim public housing project transplanted to the innards of a decrepit hotel. Street kids, binge drinkers and gangbangers pool money for rooms, where they party and crash. They are the temporary neighbors of cleaner-living Mexican immigrants, some of them families with small children. On weekends, many of the rooms are occupied by groups of friends or couples who get a room after dancing until the wee hours at Los Caporales.

Early on the morning of March 21, 1999, after Cormier took over the Regency's ballroom but shortly before he purchased the entire property, the hotel's manager called 911 to report a riot in the tower. Hundreds of people were running amok in the halls, the manager reported, and two people had been stabbed. Cormier later claimed that none of the people involved in the hotel fracas had attended his club night next door. The only other high-profile emergency call to the Regency in recent years came in February last year, when a guest set his bed on fire on the fifth floor. Because the Regency was built before 1970, it was not required to have a sprinkler system, and the blaze spread quickly. Numerous motorists on I-25 called police to report flames shooting out of the tower's windows. Sixty rooms were damaged, but no one was killed or badly burned (one guest was hospitalized for smoke inhalation).

Official scrutiny of the Regency has focused far more on the nightclub portion of the business. The City of Denver briefly suspended Cormier's liquor license in 1999 after undercover investigators reported that at least of a third of the crowd inside the hotel's ballroom appeared to be underage, that patrons were passed out inside and that bartenders were serving after hours. Denver City Councilmember Debbie Ortega says that in 1999 and 2000, she received dozens of complaints from constituents who lived or owned businesses in the largely Hispanic neighborhood near the Regency. They told her about drag racing and public urination in their neighborhood on weekend nights, all of which they attributed to Cormier's clientele. Ortega branded the Regency "a nuisance property" and called for stricter police and building-code enforcement.

In June 2001, echoing his defense of El Fugitivo, Cormier went public with accusations that his club was being unfairly targeted because his customers were mostly Mexicans. "With Los Caporales, we cater to hardworking people who come here to the United States to help build our highways and clean our offices and build the new high-rises in downtown Denver," he says. "That's who my clientele is, the hardworking people who make Denver the beautiful city it is. And it's time to leave them alone and give them the respect they deserve."

Cormier also threatened to sue the City of Denver and Ortega for $4 million for "engaging in a prolonged, organized, and deliberate effort to ruin the hotel and nightclub business."

Ortega backed off. "I got a little gun-shy," she says, "because when the attorneys representing Mr. Cormier told the City Attorney's Office that I would be named in the lawsuit, the City Attorney's Office told me, 'Gee, sorry, we can't represent you.'" Ortega still logs many complaints about the Regency, she adds: "It's still a nuisance in my district."

Despite Cormier's litigious tendencies, the city has blocked his plans to expand Los Caporales. One month after he threatened to sue in the summer of 2001, Cormier appeared before a liquor-license hearing officer, asking to build a 10,000-square-foot patio at the Regency that could accommodate another 600 drinking patrons. Assistant City Attorney Kurt Stiegelmeir and half a dozen business owners from the area testified against the expansion, claiming Los Caporales clientele engaged in drug dealing, public sex, fighting and theft in the surrounding area. Allegations that the Regency generates criminal activity are "outrageous, unprofessional and totally false," says Cormier, especially when it comes to the hotel's reputation as a junkie palace.

"There are people in every hotel in the world doing drugs, and we have less people doing drugs in this hotel than you have in any other hotel of comparable size in the city. So the drug problem here does not exist. Period. The police have investigated and investigated and investigated the claims of certain city officials, and Chief Whitman has told me, 'Art, you do not have a drug problem.' And if in fact he ever feels that we do have a problem, he will personally call me and we'll discuss it, and we'll work together to take care of it. And I know we don't have a drug problem, because I've never received that call." (Whitman could not be reached for comment).

Motel Hell, part 1

In March, 2003, when The Regency was still a hotel, local alternative newspaper The Westword wrote an article detailing the seedy place the hotel actually was. It was titled "Motel Hell." Here it is, in three parts:

I was never afraid of elevators until I rode in the elevators at the Regency Hotel. There are three of them, equally spooky, lit with bare white fluorescent bulbs. Carved swastikas and gang symbols scar the wood-paneled walls. The emergency-phone compartments hold dangling wires, pistachio shells, cigarette butts, scorched pizza crusts and broken crack pipes. Some floor buttons are missing, and many of the rest don't light up when pressed. When the elevators ascend, they squeak and rattle and creep along, as if they are being pulled up by hundreds of chinchillas running on treadmills. Going down is worse. Much worse. Going down, the elevators don't rattle and squeak -- they shudder and groan as the lights flicker. And they are prone to sudden, blood-chilling plunges, like small planes hitting air pockets in a thunderstorm.

The elevators behave as if possessed. They randomly freeze between floors long enough for claustrophobia to prowl the edges of your composure. They jolt to a halt on floors where no one has called them, doors sliding open to reveal empty hallways.

I was never sure where these elevators were taking me during a recent Saturday stay at the Regency. But Lee was. Lee is the Regency's self-appointed elevator operator. He lives in the former luxury hotel, paying a little over $100 a week for his room a hundred feet off the ground, in the main tower. All day long he rides the elevators, hitting up passengers for tips. Nights he holes up in his room and smokes methamphetamine. Lee claims to be a wizard. He only rides the middle elevator; he says the other two are cursed beyond his power. All I know is, the middle elevator never dropped when Lee was on it, and several times he coaxed it out of a stall between floors, his hands flitting like spiders over the buttons, pushing four, then six, to get me to nine.

"There are secret combinations," he says. "You just have to know, and I know. I'm numerological."

My introduction to Lee was uncivil. I was on the twelfth floor, having just checked in, and I was trying to get back down to the lobby, except the elevator call buttons on my floor had been torn from the walls. A fellow guest, a Mexican laborer newly in this country from Culiacán, Sinaloa, showed me a trick: He removed the cap from a ballpoint pen and began violently stabbing it into the socket that had once held the "down" button. "Elevator's coming," he said after five or six thrusts, then vanished into a stairwell. (Many hours later on another floor, where the call buttons were likewise missing, I witnessed a different guest achieve the same effect by wedging a bent key in the socket and then kicking it.)

A minute passed, and then I heard squeaks in the central shaft growing slowly louder, accompanied by a coarse voice spewing profanity. The squeaks stopped at my floor. The muffled swearing continued. I heard a warbling chime, and the doors slid open. There stood Lee. He was tweaking -- jaw grinding, eyes vibrating beneath a watch cap low on his brow, ratty black T-shirt pulled tight over the crystal-cut muscles of a natural athlete on speed. Lee looked me over. "I will fuck you the fuck up!" were his first words to me. He paced back and forth in three-step cycles. "You're making me paranoid," he said. The feeling was mutual. The doors began to close, and Lee reached out to part them with both hands like a ghetto Moses. "Well, get the fuck on this motherfucker," he said.

On the way down, Lee told me to give him a dollar. "Gotta tip the elevator man. You don't tip the elevator man, there's no telling what the elevator man might do." I tipped the elevator man, then told him I just wanted to ride along for a spell. He said it would cost me one dollar for each trip up, two dollars for each trip down. In return, he guaranteed safe passage. We shook on it. Moments later we hit the lobby, and two men got on carrying plastic bags stuffed with bottles of strawberry-flavored fortified wine, plastic liters of cheap vodka, chips, orange juice and candy. They both had untrimmed beards and wore torn leather jackets over grimy hooded sweatshirts and Army jackets. They wouldn't have looked out of place standing on a corner during morning rush hour, holding cardboard signs: "Christian Vet. Anything helps. God bless."

"I haven't been here in ten years," one of the men said, checking out the plywood patches in the elevator's ceiling. "I see it's still a shithole."

"Yeah," slurred his buddy. "But it's a shithole with a view."

There's a manila folder in the Western History Department archives at the Denver Public Library marked "Regency Inn." Inside is a color brochure dated 1973, depicting the Regency's trademark gold dome and tower, situated at the intersection of 39th Avenue and Elati Street, just west of the asphalt artery that was then the Valley Highway and is now Interstate 25.

"Have a love affair with Denver at the Regency," the brochure invites. "Visit a world of friendliness and gracious living. A world of splendor and grandeur amid the majestic Rocky Mountains."

Once the favorite Denver hotel of Elvis Presley, the Regency is no longer fit for the King.

Gang graffiti mars its stairwells, where pine-scented disinfectant fails to mask the reek of urine. A banner above its lobby advertises "Low Weekly Rates." Gutter punks beg for change in a stone courtyard by the drained swimming pool. The gift shop sells Army surplus MREs -- pasta in Alfredo sauce, nine for a dollar. The hotel's soda machines are perpetually empty of everything except diet cola, and its rooms are chambers of the surreal, where the decorative prints on the walls are three copies of the same crude painting: evergreen trees before a setting tropical sun, framed in fake gold.

The Regency once rated four stars in travel guides. Denver developers Victor and Martin Lederman were its first owners, having built the hotel's original tower and lobby complex in 1969 at a cost of $4 million. There were 180 guest rooms in the tower, and two lounges, two dining rooms and a coffee shop on the first floor. The hotel was successful, and in 1973, the Ledermans hired local architect Richard L. DeGette to design a $5.5 million expansion. It added 230 rooms, an outdoor pool, a 16,000-square-foot ballroom with two-story-high ceilings, a conference center and a 12,000-square-foot exhibit hall beneath a massive golden dome. The Regency was then one of the few luxury hotels of its size in America to be independently owned. In addition to Elvis, President Gerald Ford and Olympics track-and-field star Jesse Owens stayed there when they came to town. It was a popular spot for weddings, black-tie fundraisers and high school proms.

Denver's economic slump in the 1980s hit the Lederman brothers where it hurt, and in 1990, they declared bankruptcy and put their landmark hotel on the auction block for $20 million, blaming the reconfigured Mousetrap at the junction of I-25 and I-70 for the hotel's decline in business. The Regency languished throughout the 1990s. Meanwhile, local entrepreneur Art "Smiley" Cormier, owner of the gargantuan 24-hour Smiley's Laundromat on East Colfax Avenue, was hoarding his quarters, ever on the lookout for new investment opportunities. In 1995, Cormier opened El Fugitivo (The Fugitive), a Westminster nightclub catering to fans of Mexican folk and dance music.

Residents leaving

I didn't know this, but some of my fellow residents will be leaving this week. Apparently, along with the 9-month and 12-month leases you could sign, there was also a two semester deal, which some of the residents signed.

I can't imagin how much there rent was, since the fewer months you stay, the more your rent. My rent alone would have increased almost $20 if I had switched from a year-long lease to a 9-month one.

Here's a shout out to all those leaving and to all of those who will be taking their place.

All-You-Can-Eat

Mom, if you're reading this, stop.

...

Okay, I think it's cool. Alright, I may have low standards, but while living at The Regency I've eaten better than I ever have before. I didn't get this kind of selection at home. Everyday is like eating at an actually good version of Country Buffet. Here's what our food service area looks like:

When you first walk in, to right is the sandwich counter, where you can make any kind of sandwich you want. Continue past that and you have your daily entres, which changes, well, daily. Today it was tacos. Yesterday it was chicken and tofu parmesan. Tomorrow I think it's Chinese.

Past that is our Pizza counter, where they always serve cheese pizza and one with toppings that change daily. Adjacent to that is the soup counter, where you can get anything from clam chowder to vegetable soup. If you look in the back left, you'll see the grill, where you can order up anything from hamburgers to grilled cheese. Next to that is the condements and cereal dispensers, which rock. You just pull this little lever and cereal pours out. I've been wanting one of those since I was little. Next you have your ice creem dispenser, coffee machine, bagel toaster and drink dispenser, where they serve Pepsi, Coke and Minute Maid products. In the center is a desert counter and a fruits and salad bar.

The Regency vs. Denver apartments

I found a report done by Metro State's television news broadcast, The Met Report, on living at the Regency versus living in an apartment. Here it is:

In it, they come to the conclusion that living at the Regency is fairly comparable. Renting a one-room at the Regency for a semester will cost you $4670, where as living on your own can cost you anwhere from $3940 to $4790.

My problem with this is that you don't have to pay $700 for a one room. With a roommate, rent can go as low as $450. They also say that food costs $1170 a semester; yeah, if you have a meal plan. The Regency's food catering service, Chartwells, also offers a declining balace option with a $500 starting-out minimum. That means that you charge your key card with cash, and as you eat at the Regency, that cash will be used up.

So lets take the $4670 they came up with and subtract $250 from it for someone with a roommate. Thats $4420. Now lets subtract $1170 and add $500. That's $3750.

That means that if you're able to spread $500 worth of all-you-can-eat food over a semester, it would be much cheaper to live at the Regency than on your own.

My Room

This is my room that I share with my twin brother:

Pretty snazzy, huh? Actually it's pretty small, but it comes with its own bathroom, unlike most other dorms. You might not be able to see it, but we both have desks, which, as I mentioned earlier, come with the room.

I do have to say that despite its size, it's pretty much the coolest room ever. At least, the coolest room I've seen at the Regency so far.

Regency nightlife

One thing's certain: There's something to do every night of the week at the Regency.

We'll start with Monday, which is the night the Regency offers free Salsa dancing lessons. Yes, that's right. Free. Usually that costs like $40. And so does a Yoga class, also offered by the Regency on Tuesdays. Yes, that's also free. Tuesdays are also Midnight Madness, where people gather in our huge gym and plays basketball and stuff at midnight. ...So maybe that's technically a Wednesday thing... which is also the day of Movie Night, when our personal convenience store, The Rail, offers discounts on popcorn.

Thursdays are supposed to be the Regency Study Night, but really, it’s the start of the party weekend, a time to stay up late and go crazy since most students don’t have school on Friday. Actually, it’s really annoying for those who wake up early the next day. Thursdays actually seem to be crazier than Fridays since a majority of the residents stay at the Regency, as compared to Friday when everyone goes out.

Fridays are Pick-Up Basketball nights, along with Mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays, where teams square off.

Saturdays and Sundays are pretty much left up to the individual. Some go visit their families, most go clubbing. The Regency is almost deserted weekend nights.

The Regency on Wikipedia

Along with this blog, my online journalism class was given the task of creating an entry on Wikipedia involving some aspect of the Auraria Campus. Naturally, I did the Regency.

Along with three other students, we put together a presentation of Auraria’s three new dorms, my focus and expertise being on the one I lived in. On Wikipedia’s Regency page, I put everything from what amenities it has to the history of the hotel.

We had entries for Auraria’s other two dorms (Campus Village, The Inn at Auraria) also, but they were deleted. I guess others didn’t thing they were as interesting or important as the Regency, which is understandable. I don’t think the others even have a pool, let alone a big screen amphitheater. And friends tell me that the Inn at Auraria (basically rooms offered to students by an existing hotel) doesn’t even let you yell in the halls. What kind of dorm wouldn’t let college kids do that?

Anyway, check out the entry for everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the Regency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Regency

On the Big Screen

Of all the amenities at the Regency, I’d have to say my favorite is the big screen amphitheatre:

Every Wednesday at 9 p.m. is movie night at the Regency, where we’ve watched everything from Chicken Little to Reservoir Dogs. Most recently, we watched Labyrinth (barf!).

As former founder and president of my high school’s Film Club, someone who considers himself a film aficionado and the man with the biggest DVD collection at the Regency, I couldn’t resist taking advantage of this opportunity. The spring semester’s first official movie night was sponsored by my brother and me. We watched Fight Club, a favorite among people our age, and in reward for our participation and getting things started again we were given Nuggets tickets! I couldn’t go, but still, it was an honor.

And it’s great for those movies you were too cheap to go to the theater to see. I couldn’t get to the theater for Saving Private Ryan, but it was recently played on our big screen and if felt like I was watching it for the first time again. It was awesome.

Can a college change it's name?

You’ll notice that in the next few days, I’ll be posting much more, many of those posts being one right after the other as I scramble to make my post count before deadline. So just as a warning, some of the stuff I’m posting should have been posted earlier. Forgive me if I post about topics that happened weeks ago, though not all of them will go that far back.

Just a few days ago, in fact, I was riding the trusty Regency shuttle back home from school when I overheard something interesting. On the shuttle were two high-ranking Metro administrators that I had recognized from the night before at Metro’s annual scholarship dinner. No one but Regency residents are supposed to ride the Regency shuttle, but the administrators said they had a meeting at our dorms. Who the meeting was with or what it was about I have no idea, but I did hear something interesting in their quiet conversation. I think the Metropolitan State College of Denver is considering changing its name to Denver State College, or possibly Denver State University. At first I thought it was odd, since Denver isn’t a state, but then one of the administrators pointed out to the other that it’s not uncommon for a city’s university to be named that, i.e.: Mesa State, which I believe is located in southern Colorado.

And as for the changing of College to University, it’s well known that Metro is one of the most populated commuter/diversified colleges in the nation, it’s about time we achieved University status.

Whether that’s what the meeting was about, I’m not sure. But I think University status would be a great nod to Metro and increase its reputation.

Who knows, if it happens, maybe more people will stay at the Regency. I know that UCD is considering making it a requirement for incoming freshmen to stay at the Auraria Campus’ second student housing communitee, Campus Village. Maybe the same thing can happen here.

Delays

When I wrote the article for YourHub.com in February concerning the renovations to the Regency, I was told that the white DIA-like tent would be erected over the former gold-dome rotunda by early March. As we approach May, it has still to be erected. In fact, it doesn’t appear as if much of the outdoor renovation has even been attempted (that is, if you don’t include the lawns in front of the main tower, which look great). Supposedly, everything is supposed to be done by early June, which means construction has one month to look like this:

For the thousands of you who drive by the Regency daily, you know it looks nothing like this currently. And I seriously doubt they’ll have the pool done for swim season. Drats.

I'm not sure what's causing the delays, but hopefully they'll keep to their schedule and word.

Regency copper sculpter creates catchy artwork

Previously featured in the April 20, 2006 issue of YourHub, a Rocky Mountain News supplement.

Written by Jonathan Garcia. William McClung lives at the Regency.

"If I can vision it, then I can make it a reality," William McClung said, referring to his sculpting talent. "The list is endless of the capabilities of my work."

McClung, 30, is the founder and owner of Creative Copper Works, a one-man business in Denver that specializes in handcrafted copper plant sculptures and fountains. His talent stems from listening to his grandmother's knowledge of vegetation while he grew up in California, according to his business website, creativecopperworks.com.

Interested in craftsmanship from an early age, McClung began working with copper when he took on a job installing roofing. It wasn't long before he realized what he could do with the metal.

"I started designing and creating sculptures and fountains for myself and family just to see my capabilities," McClung said. After continual practice and the realization that each piece was better than the next, McClung felt confident enough to take his talent public with an art show.

"The people at the show were impressed and verbally expressed their feelings toward my work," McClung said.

From there, local art walks began showing McClung's work. His sculptures can currently be seen in coffee shops such as August Morning in Longmont and the furniture store Trios: Inspired Living & Design in Boulder.

It was in these local stores that people began to notice McClung's work, realizing that each sculpture shared a resemblance. McClung said that he recognized the need for a name to tie all of his pieces together, thus Creative Copper Works was born and McClung began receiving clients interested in commissioning artwork from him.

McClung explained that after meeting with a client and discussing what he or she wants, he would sketch a rendering of what the sculpture might look like. After getting the client's approval, McClung would get to work.

"The shaping and forming of the copper is done through rigorous hammering, bending and heating," McClung said. "The variety of color throughout the pieces is achieved through series of heat treatments, chemical baths and patina techniques."

The sculptures he has created range anywhere from bonsai trees to flowers, priced anywhere from $30 to nearly $3000. He also does floral fountains and tile work.

"People purchase my work for many reasons," McClung said. "The biggest one is they want something original, unique, one of a kind. Something they can have in their home that no one else is going to have."

Though there are some times of the year that are busier than others, such as the winter holiday season, McClung still manages to balance college life and a part-time job with Creative Copper Works and has on occasion mixed them together. Before Valentines day McClung sold a good number of copper roses to fellow Auraria Campus students for their loved ones.

In the future, McClung hopes to earn a Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design. And as for Creative Copper works, he will continue to develop his business and clientele.

"I always love a good challenge," McClung said, "so tackling every project I create is always very rewarding upon completion."

Changes coming to Regency

Previously featured in the February 23, 2006 issue of YourHub, a Rocky Mountain News supplement.

Written by Jonathan Garcia.

In the next several months, the roughly 225,000 drivers that pass by
The Regency daily will start to notice changes to the student housing
community.

Just off Interstate 25, northwest of downtown Denver, the former hotel
reopened its doors as college dorms for the Auraria campus in September 2005.

Currently, students are only residing in the building’s main tower, but
according to Regency spokeswoman Carmen Mendoza, renovation of the
annex will be done by the end of June, a project dubbed “Phase Two”
which will allow more students to move in.

The initial phase involved renovation of the tower, including two
basketball courts, a fitness center and a student dining area, Mendoza
said. “Phase Two” covers the addition of around 250 rooms and outdoor
landscaping.

Before “Phase Two” is complete, a white tent similar to the ones found
at Denver International Airport will be erected above The Regency’s
outside rotunda as soon as this spring, said General Manager Michael
Francone. It will be built over where the gold dome used to be before
it was damaged in a fire during summer 2005.

Capable of holding nearly 300 students, The Regency’s 17-floored tower
was 50 percent occupied at the beginning of January. By early February
it grew closer to 80 percent, Mendoza said smiling as she received
several new applications from students wanting to move in.

The new wing will hold 400 more students and will be cheaper than
renting some of the higher-level rooms in the tower, Francone said.
The wing will also offer a new rooming option not currently available
in the tower: a two-bedroom unit priced from $650 to $690 per month,
per student. This includes cable television, high-speed internet
access, furniture such as a bed and desk and utilities such as heat and
water. Some single units in the tower can cost almost $900 a month.

But what the annex makes up for in cost, it loses in amenities.

“There won’t be a lot of common space,” Francone said. Student will
have to walk to the main tower to access the dining area, laundry
facilities or big-screen amphitheater.

By the time the annex is finished though, students living in the wing
will have closer access to the new pool, part of “Phase Two’s” outdoor
renovation.

Along with the pool, The Regency plans to add more sections of trees
and grass to its 14 acres.

One of the student residents, Kyrie Casey, 18, is looking forward to
the new changes, specifically the new pool and growing population of
occupants.

“Hopefully this community will be bigger and better when everything’s
done,” Casey said.

Casey moved in during The Regency’s opening day, September 1.
Construction hasn’t halted since, but Casey said it’s hard to notice.
“I never hear the construction,” she said. “It’s never been a problem.”

Construction will continue beyond “Phase Two” as The Regency’s
management decides what to do with the extra 50,000 square feet of
unused space in the main tower, including a 214-seat movie theater in
the basement.

Francone said discussions have been made and suggestions include
building classrooms for the Auraria Campus, which, according to
Francone, nearly has double the student population it was built for.
Building the space into art rooms or storage for the residents is also
under consideration.

Benefits

Right now I pay $495 a month in rent (I recently learned when my girlfriend was considering moving in that for an extra $5 I could have gotten a view of downtown Denver).

Along with the $250 deposit, rent covers everything a student could want, including water, heat, electricity, cable television, internet access and a phone line all in your room. Each resident also gets a desk, chair, dresser and bed, as seen in this photo:

Furniture (besides the tables) each resident has in their room

But the benefits don't stop there. In the ground levels of The Regency, we have a movie theater, two basketball courts, a computer lab, a dining area, pool tables and a fitness center (I'll be going into greater detail of each one in later posts). There is also a shuttle that goes back and forth between the Auraria campus and The Regency just about every 15 minutes during the weekdays.

The Regency

At the beginning of the 2005 fall semester, the former Regency Hotel opened it's doors to Auraria Campus students as a student housing community. I like to refer to them as dorms.

The first dorms ever for the three colleges on the campus (Metropolitan State College of Denver, University of Colorado at Denver and Community College of Denver), The Regency is located right off I-25 near the Park Avenue West/38th exit. You can't miss it. It looks like this:

The Regency Tower

I moved into the Regency on January 7. I live on the 12th floor and, since I was too cheap to shell out an extra five bucks in rent a month for an awsome view of downtown Denver and Invesco Field, I have a great view of Commerce City, a train yard and our very own brown cloud. All joking aside, it's still a million dollar view and I'll enjoy it for as long as I'm here. I've signed a year lease, and during that year, I'll use this blog to talk about the Regency experience.

Also, since this is for a journalism class, you'll notice articles and exercises unrelated to The Regency from time to time. Please bear with me.