Downtown Aquarium (formerly Colorado's Ocean Journey) is a public aquarium and restaurant located in Denver, Colorado at the intersection of I-25 and 23rd Ave. The main building sits on a site adjacent to the South Platte River. Its freshwater and marine aquaria total approximately , and exhibit a variety of fish and other animals. The Downtown Aquarium in Denver is owned and operated by Landry's Restaurants, Inc. It is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). History Colorado's Ocean Journey was founded by Bill Fleming and Judy Petersen Fleming as a nonprofit entity. It was partially funded by a $57 million bond loan as well as loans by the department of Housing and Urban Development, and its total cost was $93 million. The facility opened June 21, 1999 and soon earned accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). It was originally called "Ocean Journey" to teach visitors how we, in Colorado, impact the whole planet via the Colorado River that flowed to the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean. It was designed and built to teach environmental and ecological messages about ecosystems in the mountains, rivers and the sea. There were two journeys (rivers): the Colorado and the Kampar in Indonesia, hence the tigers, birds, etc. It was never intended to be a seafood restaurant. Quite the opposite. Although the aquarium was highly successful and the attendance was high for years, Mayor Wellington Webb chose to invest over 100 million building a new competitive Aquarium at the Denver Zoo and fought Ocean Journey at every turn. Denver did not need two aquariums and so, funding and attendance suffered at both. And after the 9/11 tragedy in 2001, the number of visitors fell drastically within a few months, and the aquarium failed to meet its attendance projections of over a million visitors per year, in part because of a downturn in the U.S. economy. The aquarium was not able to make payments on its high construction debt, and Colorado Ocean Journey Liquidation Inc. filed bankruptcy April 2002 with a $62.5 million debt. After a last-minute bidding war with Ripley's Entertainment, Landry's Restaurants, Inc. purchased the facility in March 2003 for $13.6 million. After the purchase, the facility remained open to the public until the summer of 2005, when it closed briefly for renovations. These included the addition of a full-service restaurant, bar, and ballroom. A marine