The Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center threw open its doors at 12:18 p.m. Tuesday — the 18th day of the 12th month — giving Colorado a Las Vegas scale hotel at 1,501 rooms and Aurora a new place to gather.

“This is a place Aurora can call its own,” developer Ira Mitzner, president of RIDA Development Corp., told a crowd gathered at the property near Denver International Airport for a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The $800 million hotel required 10,000 construction workers to build and will employ 1,500 permanent workers to operate. Those workers will receive a “living” wage, along with health insurance benefits and access to a retirement plan, Mitzner promised.

The resort is expected to generate $275 million a year in economic activity in the city and spark future development, added Bob LeGare, mayor of Aurora, which pledged $300 million in local incentives to get the development off the ground.

“It has been a long and winding road to get here,” said LeGare, who is the third mayor to work on the project, which first got rolling in 2010. “The perseverance and effort was worth it.”

Gaylord hotels in other cities have shown an ability to spark development in the surrounding area, and the expectation is it will do the same for Aurora, LeGare said.

RIDA, based in Houston, has purchased 130 acres to develop near the resort and two major housing developments are planned nearby — Painted Prairie on 620 acres and the Aurora Highlands, a community slated for 23,000 homes.

Colin Reed, CEO of Ryman Hospitality Group, helped get things moving in 2010 as head of Gaylord Entertainment. Ryman has stayed on as an investor, alongside RIDA. Ares Real Estate Group, a key backer during the development phase, sold its $270 million investment in September.

Reed said Gaylord was pursuing a location in another city north of Aurora, but the talks weren’t going well. Aurora was looking for a project it could submit under the Regional Tourism Act after a proposed race track stalled.

Gaylord Entertainment wanted three things: a beautiful location, a business friendly political environment and a place where the groups in its circuit of conference business would want to visit. Aurora offered all three.

“We looked at the vista and said this is where we will be,” Reed shared with the crowd.

The bet on Colorado has paid off. Reed, who has four decades in the hospitality business, said he has never seen a hotel open as strongly as the Gaylord Rockies. The hotel has 1.1 million rooms booked over the next several years. Half the rooms are claimed for 2019 and more than half for 2020.

Within two years, he predicted the Gaylord Rockies would be viewed as one of the premier hotels to book a convention in the country.

Bonnie Godsman, CEO of GAMA International, an association that promotes professional development for investment advisers and insurance agents, pushed hard to see Gaylord build a resort in Colorado.

“We have never in the 85-year history of our group hosted an event in Colorado,” Godsman said. Her group has signed up to hold conferences in 2020 and 2024 in Aurora, bringing about 3,000 people to each.

As a reward for taking the risk of booking the first group, Godsman got to be the first person to officially check into the hotel after the ribbon cutting.

“I walked in this morning and was blown away,” she said. Other Gaylord hotels emphasize the atrium, but the Gaylord Rockies reserves the premium views for the mountains.

Mike Stengle, senior vice president of the Gaylord brand at Marriott International, said a big worry Marriott had early on was if it could find enough qualified workers given the low unemployment rate.

But he said the slots were filled and the company is happy with the people it has hired. Now the time has come to create an experience for guests that will make them want to return.

“This is actually the start of the game,” he said. “The hard part is putting the heart in the hotel.”