“Everything we said we were going to do we endeavored to do,” he said.

But the CEO of EXDO Group Cos. said it became clear six to nine months ago that he and his fellow Denver-based partners, Elevation Development Group and Kentro Group, would be unable to build a grocery store topped by apartments on a block they own in RiNo.

“That’s when Trader Joe’s didn’t work,” he said.

Last week, Dallas-based developer Trammell Crow Residential submitted plans to Denver for a 300-unit apartment complex on the 3600 block of Downing Street. Feinstein confirmed he’s under contract to sell the 2.3-acre site. TCR’s development proposal shows just 4,500 square feet of retail space in the building, meaning there won’t be a large grocery tenant.

“They’re going to do a great job,” Feinstein said of TCR, which declined to comment. But he acknowledged he’s “profoundly disappointed.”

The efforts by the three firms to bring groceries and residences to the site date to before the pandemic. Feinstein’s firm had bought much of the land in the mid-2000s, before RiNo was a thing and before a commuter rail stop landed nearby.

Redevelopment over the past 15 years has brought thousands of residents to the neighborhood. But the only grocery store that followed was a Natural Grocers on Brighton Boulevard, where options are limited.

“The two things that come up the most are we need a grocery store and we need more affordable housing,” Feinstein told Denver City Council members in 2019.

EXDO and Elevation, led by the Farber brothers, previously worked together on The Hub office building. Kentro, led by the Balafas brothers, is a grocery store specialist currently building a new King Soopers just off Colorado Boulevard.

For a while, the expected grocer was Sprouts, Feinstein said. He thought he’d secured the necessary city approvals. But then, he said, Denver told him he needed to rezone a small portion of the redevelopment site — a short stretch of Lawrence Street he’d bought from the Colorado Department of Transportation.

That delayed things about nine months.

“We lost Sprouts on the other side of the rezoning. … If we didn’t go through that process, there would be a Sprouts there that you’d be shopping at,” he said.

Feinstein and his partners tried to secure a replacement, which wasn’t simple. Every chain has unique requirements and wants a different-sized space.

“Trader’s is small, Sprouts is medium, Amazon (Fresh) is large, Target is larger,” he said.

There were other factors. Parking for a project like that is a challenge, he said. And across the country, high interest rates and construction costs have slowed development in recent years. Feinstein said Denver’s recent Expanding Housing Affordability regulations, which require residential projects to incorporate income-restricted units or pay a large fee — thus increasing costs, from a developer’s perspective — hasn’t helped.

Trammell Crow Residential, the firm under contract to buy the site, has developed a host of apartment buildings along the Front Range. Its buildings generally have “Alexan” in their name.

Feinstein and his partners weren’t the only ones trying to bring a grocer to RiNo.

About a mile to the southeast, retail landlord Edens has for years talked of bringing a grocer to the city block across from the Denver Central Market food hall.

Plans there have changed as well. The grocery store was originally going to be part of a large-scale redevelopment, which would have demolished structures in the 2600 block of Larimer Street and replaced them with apartments and new retail units.

Earlier this year, however, the company pumped the brakes on that and indicated it is now looking at repurposing the existing structures. A July 16 memo from Tracy Huggins, executive director of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority, states that from 2022 through mid-2024, Edens “attempted to secure a partner to construct the residential project but was not successful.”

While the residential units are no longer included in updated plans Edens has submitted to Denver, a planned grocery store still is.

Documents show it would go in a new 12,500-square-foot building to be constructed at 27th and Lawrence streets, but don’t identify a particular grocer. A local Edens executive didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday.

Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.

For the second time in four years, the two-story home across from Denver’s Washington Park is facing the wrecking ball — prompting a backlash from some who hope to save it.

In 2021, the home’s then-owner — Aaron Grant of Denver’s Grant Real Estate Co. — applied to Denver for a demolition permit for the home, which dates to 1890.

City staff wrote up a report on the 2,350-square-foot structure’s history, and posted notice of the application at the site. In response, a group of city residents indicated they wanted to see the structure named a city landmark, a status that would effectively prevent demolition.

A city-hired mediator sat down with both the residents and Grant, and they reached a deal. The property’s owner withdrew the application for a demolition permit, and the residents agreed not to file a formal landmark application, according to the city.

The home remained standing.

In February, records show, Grant — who did not respond to requests for comment — sold the property for $2.6 million. The buyers were Tony and Robin Kohake. He’s an engineering/procurement manager for an oil and gas firm. She’s a stay-at-home mom. They have four kids.

The Kohakes didn’t buy 800 S. Franklin for the house.

“There is dry rot, the chimney is in bad condition, and there is cracking around the foundation,” Tony told BusinessDen. “The flooring was removed before we bought it and there were holes in the walls.”

Rather, they wanted the property’s 11,600-square-foot corner lot.

“We were looking to build our dream home for our family and have a bigger backyard for our kids,” he said, adding it would be “a Tudor-style home that complements many of the homes in the neighborhood already.”

In May, the Kohakes applied to Denver for a demolition permit for the home. The city wrote a report and posted notice at the property. And in late June, two groups — 24 people between them — sent letters to the city about potentially landmarking the property.

The Kohakes had not been aware of the previous effort to save 800 S. Franklin. In fact, they weren’t aware of Denver’s landmark process at all.

“We are still a bit shocked individuals can landmark designate someone else’s property against their consent with almost no skin in the game (an $875 application fee),” Tony said. “We are all for preservation when/where it makes sense, but this process seems incredibly broken.”

The home joins an eclectic mix of Denver structures and their owners that have found themselves in similar situations in the past decades.

The Tom’s Diner building on Colfax was sold to a new owner, who preserved the structure. So was a shuttered funeral home in the Berkeley neighborhood. A Dutch Colonial Revival-style home in City Park West was named a landmark against the wishes of the developer who hoped to replace it with apartments. Preservationists gave up on landmarking the small Carmen Court condo building off Speer Boulevard, which was recently demolished. And the City Council rejected an effort to save a late architect’s home in Cherry Creek, as well as the office building where Denver7 previously operated.

But the Wash Park home’s situation most resembles 5013 E. Montview Blvd. in South Park Hill, an older structure that was also bought by a family hoping to build a larger home.

Last year, Denver’s Landmark Preservation Commission rejected a bid by neighbors hoping to preserve the structure. It has since been demolished, and the new larger home is finished.

Organizers of the two groups hoping to preserve 800 S. Franklin didn’t respond to BusinessDen’s requests for comment.

In a letter sent by one of the groups, they cited three reasons for preserving the house. First, its architectural significance as “a rare Queen Anne Free Classic-style structure.” Second, on a historical level, its ties to the early development of the neighborhood and the fact that it’s the former home of William Burnett, a Denver County Court and Denver District Court judge in the 1950s through the 1970s. And third, its prominent position across from the park.

The Kohakes and the preservationists are currently in mediation, which Denver requires in situations like this.

Tony said they’re willing to list the property for sale for a period of time, to see if someone wants to buy it and preserve the structure. That’s become a common offer in landmark discussions. The owners of the Montview property did the same thing back in 2023.

“Our only ask is just to be made whole,” Tony said.

The property’s current value is based on its land, he said, so his family could lose “well over a million dollars” if the house becomes a city landmark and must remain standing.

Robin Kohake said preparing to build a new home, and paying for 800 S. Franklin and their existing home, had been stressful enough even before the landmark discussions.

“Now this is delaying it by months and months,” she said.

Get more real estate and business news by signing up for our weekly newsletter, On the Block.

The southern suburb’s city council last week approved a rezoning request from The Garrett Cos., an Indiana-based multifamily developer, for 6901 S. Havana St.

The 18.9-acre site on the east side of Interstate 25 near Topgolf currently has a two-story, 130,000-square-foot office building on it that dates to 1989. It has been vacant since April.

Garrett Cos. intends to construct 368 multifamily units on the property across 14 buildings, the tallest of which would be four stories, according to documents submitted to the city.

Garrett Cos. Director of Development Colin Wattleworth told council members last week that the Centennial/Inverness submarket has “really high vacancy” in the office sector, higher than Denver proper.

“What this is telling us is that office space is not in demand in the submarket and that it’s oversupplied. We’re proposing to convert that site … away from a use that’s not in demand into needed housing,” he said.

Garrett Cos. has yet to buy the site, but a company spokesman told BusinessDen that should happen around the end of the year. The property is owned by Centura Health Corp., the nonprofit hospital system that broke up in 2023, with its hospitals being divided by CommonSpirit Health and AdventHealth.

“With the disaffiliation of Centura and the increase in remote work, we no longer have a need for this space,” CommonSpirit spokeswoman Lindsay Radford Foster said in an email.

Due to its ownership by a nonprofit health system, Wattleworth said the property is currently exempt from paying property taxes. His firm expects annual tax bills of about $650,000 when its project is done. The company told Centennial it hopes to break ground in the first quarter of next year.

Garrett Cos. has an office in Denver and has done about 25 projects along the Front Range, including one in Centennial itself — the 149-unit Mezz at Fiddler’s Green at 6440 S. Syracuse Way.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with comment from a CommonSpirit spokeswoman.

Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.

District Judge Kandace Gerdes dismissed the lawsuit brought by QuikTrip and Evangeline Pappas, a Chaffee Park property owner under contract to sell to QuikTrip, on July 3.

The lawsuit, filed in March, took aim at a Denver measure that bars new gas stations within a quarter mile of existing stations or rail platforms and within 300 feet of certain residential zone districts. The City Council approved the change with a 12-1 vote in February.

BusinessDen noted before the vote that QuikTrip was at the center of the debate. The Oklahoma-based firm was the only gas station chain to submit feedback on company letterhead, and many Denver residents providing input ahead of the vote referenced planned QuikTrip stations near them.

QuikTrip announced its intent to enter the Denver region in 2019 and now has 20 locations between Monument and Greeley, according to its website. Others are in the works, including one at the former El Rancho restaurant site near Evergreen.

QuikTrip’s lawsuit took particular aim at the fact that the new law was retroactive. The measure exempted only projects for which development plans had been submitted to Denver by May 13 — a full nine months before the council vote.

While the measure was discussed to some extent on that May date, specifics regarding the measure weren’t known until months later.

QuikTrip’s lawsuit identified four planned company gas stations affected by the measure. The company said it was under contract to buy three of the sites and lease the fourth, and had collectively spent $750,000 toward development of the sites.

Weeks after the lawsuit was filed, Denver asked the court to dismiss it. The judge ultimately agreed with the city on all three claims, saying QuikTrip had not shown it had been injured because no final decision had been made by Denver on the company’s development proposals, nor had QuikTrip made any attempt to get a waiver or variance. She also noted that retroactive legislation isn’t necessarily unconstitutional.

“Accordingly, as the Court is permitted to balance the right against public health concerns and public policy considerations, the Court finds that the Amendment is permissibly retroactive,” Gerdes wrote.

QuikTrip spokeswoman Aisha Jefferson told BusinessDen in an email that “we are disappointed in the court’s decision and are currently evaluating next steps with respect to the ordinance.”

The Denver City Attorney’s Office said in a statement that the office “is pleased with the court’s decision” and remains “committed to advancing land use policies that support thoughtful growth and serve the best interests of the City and its residents.”

Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.

Just under two years after leasing two floors of office space at 1701 Platte St. for its U.S. headquarters, the British sports betting firm has purchased the building.

Bet365 paid $135 million, according to public records. That works out to just under $550 for each of the One Platte building’s approximately 250,000 square feet.

The sellers in the deal were Nichols Partnership and San Francisco-based Shorenstein Properties, which developed the building.

Nichols partner Daniel Nichols said the total project cost was “about what we sold it for,” which he sees as a win at a time when office building owners are regularly surrendering properties to lenders.

“All things considered, I think it was a huge success to not lose everything in the office world right now,” he said.

Nichols and Shorenstein broke ground on One Platte in February 2020, just before the onset of the pandemic. Back then, “the projected return metrics were different, but the market was significantly different,” Nichols said. The building was completed two years later.

Nichols said only one 30,000-square-foot space, built out with spec suites, remains vacant. In addition to Bet365, which has about 125,000 square feet, tech firm Velocity Global and construction firm McCarthy also occupy office space.

The building’s top floor is leased, but not occupied, by stock-trading app Robinhood. The company originally leased two floors before One Platte’s completion but later bought out its lease for one of them. Nichols said the company has been paying its rent.

One Platte’s four retail spaces are all leased. Tenants include financial services firm Schwab and coffee shop Kaffe Landskap.

Nichols said the project’s construction loan, which had previously been extended, was coming due next year. Shorenstein was the primary driver in the decision to sell.

Bet365, which did not respond to requests for comment, is one of the dominant sports betting firms in its native U.K., but trails behind competitors including FanDuel and DraftKings in the United States. It currently takes bets in 13 states, including Colorado, where sports betting launched in May 2020.

In 2023, the Colorado Economic Development Commission made Bet365 eligible for up to $14 million in state tax credits in the hopes of landing the company’s U.S. headquarters. The company has said it plans to hire nearly 1,000 employees locally.

Nichols called the company’s office buy “a huge win for Denver,” saying it further shows Bet365 is “here for the long haul.”

Bet365 isn’t the first local company to buy the building it operates in. The founder and CEO of shed manufacturer Tuff Shed bought its property at Interstate 25 and Colorado Boulevard in December.

Nichols Partnership, meanwhile, recently purchased a site in Cherry Creek. Founder Randy Nichols told BusinessDen in March the company was considering either an office or condominium project at the site. Nichols is also pursuing a condo project in the suburb of Golden.

The sale of One Platte means Shorenstein no longer has any Denver holdings. The company previously owned Rev360, a 170,000-square-foot RiNo office building, but gave the keys to its lender last December. Rev360 has been empty since it was completed in July 2020.

The most recent Platte Street office sale came in late 2023, when the Riverview building at 1700 Platte St. fetched for $129 million, or $673 a square foot.

Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.

The three-building Aurora Corporate Plaza at 12100-12250 E. Iliff Ave. was purchased earlier this month by Mile High Tech Center LLC for $5.05 million, according to public records.

Rui Chen signed paperwork on behalf of the buyer. Attempts to reach him for contact were unsuccessful. First Western Trust Bank provided the buyer with a $3 million loan, records show.

The complex at the southeast corner of Iliff Avenue and Peoria Street is 220,000 square feet. That makes last week’s deal equate to $23 a square foot.

The property was previously owned by an affiliate of San Francisco-based Graham Street Realty, which bought it in December 2016 for $17.4 million, records show.

Graham Street subsequently defaulted on the property’s loan, issued by Independent Bank. As a result, the property had been overseen since November by Cordes & Co., a court-appointed receiver.

At the time Cordes took over, the property was 38% occupied. The receiver put the property on the auction block last month with a $4.5 million reserve price. Properties are generally not sold if an auction reserve price is not met.

Cordes Director Suni Devitt wrote in a report filed in court in late May that the auction attracted “significant interest,” with 110 signed confidentiality agreements, seven property tours and nine individuals/companies registering to bid during the auction.

Mile High Tech Center LLC technically bid $4.93 million, Devitt wrote, but was also responsible for paying the “Ten-X buyer premium,” which added $120,000.

This story was originally published by BusinessDen.

Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.

Colorado’s VFW organization is asking $5 million for the 20,000-square-foot building at 4747 W. Colfax Ave., which sits on just shy of an acre.

The site sits on two sides of an alley and is zoned C-MS-5, which generally allows mixed-use buildings up to five stories. The two-story post building was built in 1981.

The nation’s first VFW isn’t a smoky bar with vets telling war stories. Here’s what Post 1 in Denver is doing instead.

Post 501 was formed in 1920 and was the first thing locally to be named after Francis Brown Lowry, a Coloradan who was killed in action in World War I. He later became the namesake of the Lowry Air Force Base and thus the Lowry neighborhood, which now sits where the base once operated.

But Post 501 had its charter revoked last year by the national VFW organization, after the group’s statewide arm suspended the post and determined it could not be turned around.

“It is not done without a lot of due diligence and a lot of issues that we do not feel can be rectified by management of the post,” said Jesse Eastburn, adjutant/quartermaster for VFW Colorado.

Eastburn said the post officially had more than 100 veteran members, but only five were actively engaged — too few to even form a board.

Additionally, he said, there was “a lot of financial mismanagement.” The post building was rented out as event space, but leadership there failed to follow basic business practices, like ensuring the rental operation brought in more than it spent.

“It was very much financial illiteracy,” Eastburn said.

“At the end of the day, the biggest problem with 501 was they just wanted to be a bar,” he added.

The post was specifically built to be an event space, with the potential to have separate events going on each of the floors at once. The structure has a bar on both levels, a full kitchen on the ground floor and a catering prep area on the second floor. There are 70 surface parking spots.

“There is a way to reinvent this building that blends into some of the current concepts that are popular, like a beer garden,” said real estate broker Win King of King Commercial, who is marketing the property.

King has sold about eight post properties for the statewide organization over the past couple decades, and noted a buyer of 501 may be more interested in the land. It could be a good fit for income-restricted housing, he said, noting similar projects nearby.

“The preference probably from the city’s side and the community’s side is more housing … If you vacate the alley, you might be able to get north of 200 units,” he said.

The list price works out to $240 a square foot based on the existing building, and $122 a square foot based on the land.

The VFW’s priority is to get a reasonable amount from the property so it can use the funds to support its three service offices in Denver, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction. Staff there help veterans access benefits and navigate their Department of Veterans Affairs claims.

Other Denver VFW properties have also sold in recent years. Post 2461 along South Broadway sold in 2019 because “there just weren’t enough people coming into the post to pay the bills and keep the lights on,” the post’s commander said at the time. In 2018, a post at 2190 S. Platte River Drive was sold after it too had its charter revoked.

There are now just two posts left in Denver proper, Eastburn said.

Nationally, the VFW has seen declining membership amid struggles to recruit younger veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans must have served in a war, campaign or “expedition on foreign soil or in hostile waters” to join, per the VFW’s website.

Still, Eastburn said there are new posts being formed. Things like video game nights have seen success at attracting the younger generation. And the newer posts are often opting not to have a building, and instead meet somewhere like a local community center.

“They don’t have to worry about the financial strain of running a business,” he said.

Read more at our partner, BusinessDen.

Chris Elliott of E5X Management is set to buy the site between 32nd and 38th avenues for redevelopment, a representative confirmed to BusinessDen.

Intermountain Health, which owns the property, is set to announce Elliott as the buyer Tuesday afternoon.

Elliott has for decades specialized in developing large master-planned residential communities, according to a bio on the website of the Douglas County Community Foundation, where he is a board member. He’s done projects in municipalities across the region, including Parker and Arvada, with one recent acquisition being a 300-acre site in Erie.

The hospital campus is available because Intermountain last year moved Lutheran to a 26-acre site three miles west in Wheat Ridge, at Interstate 70 and 40th Avenue. CBRE has been marketing the former site for sale since spring of 2024.

“While thoughtful and deliberate, the process of requesting bids and interviewing developers moved along quickly to ensure that the site doesn’t sit vacant or fall into disrepair,” Intermountain said in a press release last week.

Last month, Wheat Ridge unanimously voted to apply new custom zoning to the site, a move the city described as “a major step toward implementing a community-driven vision.” That zoning allows for lower-density homes along the edges of the property, and taller buildings capped at five stories toward the center.

It also requires 20% of the property be public open space, double the typical requirement for mixed-use projects, according to the city.

Intermountain has initiated the process of creating a metro district to finance future public infrastructure improvements at the site, according to the city.

Get more real estate and business news by signing up for our weekly newsletter, On the Block.

Fencing has gone up around the Carmen Court building at 900 E. 1st Ave., and a banner touts the services of American Demolition.

“I can confirm that demolition is imminent,” said Marisa Monte, a spokeswoman for Hines, the Houston-based development firm that owns the property.

The adobe-style building was the subject of a preservation fight in 2020. That spring, with Hines under contract to purchase the property, the company applied to Denver for a certificate of demolition eligibility, a designation that would make it easy to demolish the structure in the near future.

In response, some neighbors asked the city to instead name the structure a city landmark, a status that effectively prevents demolition.

The individual owners of Carmen Court’s six units, meanwhile, opposed landmark status and felt caught “in purgatory,” unsure whether their deals to sell to Hines would actually close.

That October, feeling unsure if their landmark application had the necessary support from the Denver City Council, the neighbors withdrew it. Hines purchased the property in December, paying $1 million for each of the units, and another $2.8 million for additional homes to the south.

In the years since, Carmen Court has sat unoccupied and become overgrown.

When the neighbors withdrew the application, they said Hines had agreed to not demolish the structure until the company is ready to begin constructing its new project — a five-story senior living facility.

The thought was that arrangement would avoid a situation in which Hines demolished Carmen Court but ended up not building the senior living complex. And it left open the possibility that someone else might step in to buy the structure and keep its current use.

“Every day a building stands is another day that it stands,” Sarah McCarthy, a leader of “Friends of Carmen Court,” told BusinessDen in October 2020.

City records indicate a demolition permit for Carmen Court was approved in January.

Hines does appear to be operating under something of a deadline. When the landmark application was withdrawn in 2020, Hines did get the certificate of demolition eligibility certificate it had been originally seeking.

The certificate is good for five years, and expires this October. After that, demolition of the structure would still be possible, but the approval process would be more burdensome.

Hines’ development portfolio in Denver includes the 40-story office tower at 1144 15th St.

Read more at our partner, BusinessDen.

On Monday, crews began demolishing the long-abandoned building just north of the intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Colfax Avenue.

The five-story structure on just over an acre at 1565 N. Colorado Blvd. was bought for $7.3 million in January 2024 by Chicago-based Laramar Group. The firm develops apartments and has submitted plans for a six-story building at the site with about 150 units.

A local executive with Laramar didn’t respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The five-story, yellow-and-turquoise Royal Palace Motel was built in 1969, at the tail end of the golden era of motels on Colfax. Interstate 70 through Denver was completed around the same time, diverting travelers.

Most Colfax motels have since been demolished or used as housing by the city’s poorest residents. The Royal Palace hung on for decades before closing in 2013. A 1998 homicide at the motel remains a cold case.

Laramar bought the property from Denver developer Jeff Oberg, who purchased it for $850,000 in 2004.

Read more at our partner, BusinessDen.