The national trash company has leased several buildings at 3600 E. 48th Ave. in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood since 2005 without much problem, according to a lawsuit it filed last week.

“Waste Management Recycle America faithfully paid all rent and performed its lease obligations,” it wrote. “But in 2024, (Armstrong Capital Development) purchased the buildings and, unlike the prior landlord, immediately demanded that WMRA perform almost $2 million in repairs, despite knowing the condition of the buildings before its purchase.”

Armstrong, a private equity firm headquartered in Greenwood Village, paid $18.3 million for the property early last year. On July 21, it gave Waste Management an ultimatum, according to the company: Either make more than $1 million in repairs or be kicked out.

“The threatened eviction has ramifications far beyond just the relationship of WMRA and ACD,” according to the former’s lawsuit. “Since a huge amount of recycling flows through the WMRA 48th Street facility, the threatened eviction would disrupt an estimated 10 to 15 percent of all recycling in the Denver metropolitan area. That is a serious public impact.”

Jarrett Armstrong, the CEO of Armstrong Capital Development, declined to talk about that.

“Although we don’t agree with Waste Management’s assertions in the lawsuit, our practice is not to comment on pending litigation,” Armstrong told BusinessDen. When asked if he will be evicting Waste Management from 3600 E. 48th, he said, “Any potential eviction of Waste Management similarly concerns pending litigation and ACD does not comment.”

Waste Management’s spokespeople and lawyers did not answer requests for an interview.

The dispute between tenant and landlord concerns a warehouse roof that dates to the 1940s and has leaked since Waste Management moved in, according to the company. It has paid for several roof repairs and replacements over the years, its lawsuit explains.

In 2023, Waste Management signed a lease through 2026, with the expectation it will move to its new Aurora location after that. Then, Armstrong bought the property and almost immediately demanded that Waste Management make $1.9 million in repairs, the tenant alleges.

“While WMRA was surprised by this sudden change from the position of any prior landlord, and disputed the extent of repairs demanded, WMRA has substantially complied with a large portion of Armstrong’s demands” by landscaping, painting and repairing the warehouse.

Still, its landlord is demanding more — and unfairly threatening to evict, the tenant claims.

“Waste Management vigorously opposes the defendant’s improper attempt to use eviction proceedings as leverage … and thereby threaten continued waste recycling for large segments of Denver and the surrounding communities,” according to the July 23 lawsuit.

Waste Management’s lawyers are Dana Eismeier and Michael Ley at Burns Figa & Will.

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But physical therapist Chris Edmundson said the new law will just aggravate the stress from rising costs that he and other small-business owners have struggled with over the past few years.

Edmundson, who runs eight physical therapy clinics in Colorado and one in Hawaii, called inflation a “national shock to the system.”

“And now this bill. It will put additional pressures on our company,” Edmundson said.

The biggest drawback to Edmundson is the impact on Medicaid and other health care programs. Many of the patients of Integral Physical Therapy are on Medicaid, a joint state-federal program that provides health care for children and people with low incomes and disabilities.

The new law is expected to cut about $1 trillion through 2034 as a result of policy changes to health care programs, including Medicaid. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates about 11.8 million American could lose coverage.

Edmundson, who has a doctorate in physical therapy, said he started his company nine years ago with the intention of expanding access for patients covered by Medicaid. “We’ve always prided ourselves on serving that population.”

However, Edmundson expects that the law’s changes in eligibility, more frequent reporting on recipients and work requirements will reduce the Medicaid rolls, leaving people without health care coverage and perhaps decreasing his business.

“People will suffer. That’s the thing that is most troubling,” Edmundson said. “And for us it’s going to lead to less overall patients coming through the door. That will mean there’s a possibility we have to lay people off, possibly providers and support staff.”

Hunter Nelson hears similar concerns from other small-business owners in Colorado. She is the director of the Colorado office of the Small Business Majority, a national organization.

“One third of Medicaid enrollees are connected to a small business. It’s going to impact our small-business owners as well as workers, especially in lower-wage sectors,” Nelson said.

An analysis by the Small Business Majority and Georgetown University found that 57% of small-business owners oppose cuts to Medicaid while only 23% would support cutbacks.

The legislation signed into law on the Fourth of July also allows for the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits for people who buy health care plans through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. A national poll by the Small Business Majority showed that 74% of 504 small businesses surveyed favor extending the credits.

The failure to extend the federal subsidies is expected to drive up premiums on Colorado’s individual health care market by an average of 28% statewide, the Colorado Division of Insurance said. Costs in the western part of the state are projected to jump by over 38% next year.

Last year, about 321,000 people received subsidies for health care insurance on Colorado’s marketplace. The average statewide increase in premiums was 5.6% for 2025, according to the governor’s office.

Nelson said the end of the tax credits means that some Colorado business owners who want to buy health insurance for themselves or their employees won’t be able to. The Small Business Majority and others met with members of Congress while the tax bill was being debated and plan to keep sharing the stories of small business owners.

“We just need to make that message loud and clear. We’re going to see fallout from passage of the bill,” Nelson said.

The fallout could be widespread if Nelson’s fears materialize. A 2024 state report said the roughly 715,000 businesses classified as small comprised 99.5% of all Colorado businesses and employed about 1.1 million people.

In contrast to the Small Business Majority, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised the new law, saying that a competitive, pro-growth tax policy “is essential to strengthen the economy and raise wages for workers.”

The National Federation of Independent Business, NFIB, supported the legislation, calling it “one of the most pro-small-business pieces of legislation in recent history.” The law will prevent “a massive tax hike” on more than 33 million business owners and provide a tax cut for most small-business owners, the group said.

One of the victories cited by the NFIB is a provision making a small-business tax deduction permanent. The new law increases the deduction from 20% to 23% for businesses taxed at the individual rather than corporate level.

The Small Business Majority supported a bill to change the deduction by allowing businesses to deduct the first $25,000 in qualified business income from their annual tax obligations. Nelson said 74% of benefits under the current system flow to the wealthiest 5% of the businesses rather than typical Main Street entities.

“It would create more of a bottom-up tax reform structure that would also benefit more of our smaller businesses contributing to and powering our local economies,” Nelson said.

Edmundson said a provision in the tax bill that looks like a positive for his business isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Under the new law, health care providers are set to get a 2.5% bump in Medicare fees.

“That sounds really great. However, the fee was cut 2.83% in January, so it’s just restoring some of the money they took away,” Edmundson said.

Health care providers have seen cuts in Medicare fees for the last five years, Edmundson said. Medicare is the federal health insurance program for people 65 and older.

Edmundson worries about the effects of new work requirements for Medicaid recipients. Many able-bodied recipients between ages 19 and 64 will have to show they worked, attended school or volunteered for 80 hours per month.

In his practice, Edmundson said therapists work with people who might not qualify as being disabled but have debilitating conditions that make working difficult. He said physical therapy can get people back to work and living their lives without more expensive or intrusive treatments.

“We’re concerned as health care providers that this work requirement is going to preclude some people from completing their rehab,” he said. “Another concern I have is that we have some people — family members, friends of our patients — who stopped working to care for their loved ones and they need to be on Medicaid because of their lack of income.”

New reporting requirements and changes in paperwork will boost the burden on clinic employees, Edmundson added. There’s also criticism that the new requirements are a way to pare the programs by making them harder for people to navigate.

“There’s nothing about this bill or this way of thinking that helps the sort of business that I’m in. It certainly doesn’t help patients,” Edmundson said.

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“It’s been a long time coming,” said the co-owner of Frank & Roze.

The former Starbucks executive opened the coffee shop’s first location at Ninth Avenue and Colorado Boulevard in 2019 and never intended for it to be a one-off. Earlier this year, she finally signed a 10-year lease for a second location in Uptown, aiming to open by the holidays.

Frank & Roze will fill 4,100 square feet at the corner of Pennsylvania Street and 19th Avenue that was formerly home to D-Bar, a dessert cafe that closed nearly a year ago. The space is on the ground floor of the One City Block apartment building.

“The community in that neighborhood is fantastic. (People) live and work there all within two to three blocks,” she said. “It’s 100% about providing a place where they feel welcome, and the community there is the reason we chose it.”

The restaurant will use its bigger kitchen to expand the shop’s menu of breakfast sandwiches, baked goods, sandwiches and salads.

Local chef Tom Coohill, the owner of downtown French spot Coohills, is the man behind the menu. He has worked with Godfrey since Frank & Roze’s opening, serving frittatas and specialty toast alongside the shop’s brews at the original 2,500-square-foot shop.

Frank & Roze currently serves wine and beer at that location, but Godfrey wants a full liquor license to go with Uptown’s 18-seat bar.

“We’ll have a proper brunch full of Eggs Benedicts and Bloody Marys and all the mimosas you can imagine,” she said.

The space will likely be open a little later than the 5:30 p.m. close the first location has. Godfrey wants to get a happy hour crowd in there through the early evening while still having time to hold private events like the work parties and anniversaries that she has at the other spot.

She said the design of the new location will lean toward higher-end “vibey” fabrics rather than the mid-century modern aesthetic the original place is known for. Plants will still be prominently featured, she said.

“You need to be able to sit at the bar and be comfortable working on a laptop in the morning and also having a Manhattan and chatting with friends in the afternoon,” she said of the space.

At Starbucks, Godfrey was in a divisional management role on the development and real estate teams. With Frank & Roze, she aimed to build a café that was scalable. But opening four months before the pandemic hit affected her ability to grow, she said. Dealing with a three-month shutdown, inflationary pressures and a rising Denver minimum wage, Godfrey wanted to make sure the first spot was air tight before opening a second.

Some of those changes included trimming the menu and finding more efficient software systems and staffing setups. She said the business saw double-digit revenue growth in each of its first five years.

“We were very, very selective in moving forward. We looked at a lot of real estate, talked to a lot of developers,” she said. “We looked at a number of opportunities within the Uptown area. We looked in the Highlands, LoHi, Golden Triangle too, the usual suspects.”

Godfrey said this isn’t the last expansion for Frank & Roze. But for now, she said 98% of her attention is on keeping the current location well oiled and setting up the Uptown spot for success.

“The second location is almost more important than the first, in the sense that can you actually demonstrate that you can replicate your concept and the business model has legs?” she said. “You want to make sure your model is sound, you have real estate fundamentals and you understand who your customers are and how they want to enjoy your hospitality.”

This story was originally published by BusinessDen.

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The owner of Little Kickers in Denver’s Virginia Village neighborhood recently bumped up pay for instructors to improve retention.

“It’s a high, high turnover industry overall. A lot of people do it as their high school job. Nobody really dreams of being a swim instructor as their career,” said Roush, who is the founder and owner.

Roush said she expects to have revenue of $5 million this year.

“People just haven’t been able to use it as something that will financially support them,” she continued. “Denver, especially, it’s very expensive here, so a lot of our instructors have two or three other jobs and sometimes this isn’t a priority for them.”

The recent change takes starting pay for coaches from $22 to $25 an hour. But the more noticeable jump is on the high end — pay is now capped at $50 an hour, up from $32.

Roush said the average instructor is now earning $35 an hour, a $10 increase from a month ago.

Little Kickers, which Roush opened with her sister in 2014, has 1,750 weekly students ranging in age from 5 months to 12 years. Most fall between ages 2 and 6. Roush said she thinks the increased staffing consistency will allow her to get the weekly student number to 2,000.

The school in 5,700 square feet at 1423 S. Holly St. charges $59 an hour for 30-minute private lessons. The $5 million in revenue projected this year is a slight increase over last year, when the business brought in $4.8 million.

As part of the pay increase, she requires her staff to commit to a schedule for a full year. She said in the 60 days since she started rolling out the changes, call outs and sick days have dropped 75%.

“Growth within Little Kickers for the past as long as I can remember has been, ‘How do I get out of the water? What can I do to get a shift out of the water?’” she said. “Because usually that means more money.

“My belief is that people who are the most excellent instructors should be making more than some of the people out of the water.”

The move is already enticing former coaches to jump back into Little Kickers’ pool.

Last Tuesday, Barry Friedman was in the midst of his first week back on the job. He started teaching for Roush in 2016, but returned home to South Dakota in October.

“The reason I left is because Denver is expensive. I was working two jobs and sometimes like 16-hour days,” he said. “It just got really exhausting.”

But when Roush called about the pay hike, Friedman opted to return.

“Some people look at swim instructing as a really easy job, but really it’s physically demanding,” he said. “It can be mentally and emotionally demanding. It’s a lot of work having kids climb on you all day, being in chlorine for 30 to 40 hours a week.”

Roush started teaching swimming lessons in high school at what used to be the Cherry Creek Athletic Club. She and her sister started Little Kickers in an office building’s pool, then moved to a since-shuttered Holiday Inn in Cherry Creek.

Seven years ago, the pair signed a 10-year lease for the current Virginia Village space. After getting the permanent spot up and running, Roush and her husband, Mark, who owned Great Play Cherry Creek before closing during the pandemic, opened the Kickin’ It Kids Gym next door to Little Kickers. That business is on track to do around $1 million this year.

One of the main reasons for the pay bump is that Yael Roush bought out her sister’s stake in the business earlier this year.

“We’ve created two phenomenal businesses over the past 10 years, and I think just over the past two years, our visions really started to grow apart,” she said. “We had very different ideas of what we wanted this to look like. … It’s been 90 days of me having the ability to not have to run an idea like a crazy compensation plan by somebody else.”

Cutting eight management positions earlier this year is one of the ways she is offsetting the costs. Another will be having more full-timers, which she hopes will bring down the employee count to 50. She also plans to increase the lesson price by $9, to $68.

Yael Roush said Little Kickers’ clients mostly come from Cherry Creek, Wash Park and Virginia Village. She expects them to benefit from coaching consistency.

“We were in a place where we were so nervous to fill our schedule because we didn’t know if we could rely on those coaches. And so we wouldn’t want to put a new family into a schedule because we didn’t know if that coach was leaving,” she said. “But with this, we can trust our coaches. We know they’re going to be there. We know they’re going to show up.”

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The business, which opened its first boulder gym in 2009, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early July in a bid to keep two locations in Englewood and Denver’s Valverde neighborhood open.

The third location, in Thornton, closed days before, at the end of last month. In an Instagram post, the company cited only “unforeseen circumstances.” But in court documents, the company said the spot was dragging it down.

“(DBC) was forced to file bankruptcy due to an underperforming location, unfavorable lease, and a dip in memberships, which created cash flow issues,” the company said in one filing.

The company did not respond to requests for comment from BusinessDen.

The lease in Thornton has five years remaining, documents show, while leases for the still-operating gyms each have a year remaining.

The company has asked a judge to let it exit the Thornton lease, saying the location “is losing money and is burdensome.” A judge has yet to rule.

Thomas Betterton owns 64% of Denver Bouldering Club, per court filings. The remainder of the company is owned by Ben Bryant, Matt Bucaric and John Gass.

Court documents show DBC had revenue of about $1.3 million in both 2023 and 2024. As of July 3, it had revenue of $288,000 in 2025, and forecast total sales of $833,000 for the full year.

The gym reported $89,000 in assets and $526,000 in liabilities. Filings show its biggest creditor, the U.S. Small Business Administration, is owed $492,000.

Costs also include $40,000 in payroll monthly for 10 hourly and six salary employees, filings state. The gym successfully petitioned the court to keep paying its staff while it goes through the Chapter 11 process.

“While (DBC’s) business model has the potential to be profitable, (it) could not maintain its prepetition obligations,” the company said in one filing. “Faced with mounting debt and limited liquidity, (DBC) had no viable option but to seek bankruptcy protection.”

DBC memberships cost $72 a month for use during business hours, according to the company’s website, which also shows other options including 24/7 access for just $10 more. Its website also shows several other options, including 24/7 access for $82 a month and more flexible packages.

When the gym signed its Thornton lease in 2019, Betterton told BusinessDen that bouldering, in which participants climb up 15-foot walls with no harnesses or ropes, was a fast-growing part of the climbing industry. He also said buildout for the Thornton spot would cost DBC between $500,000 and $1 million.

“With how outdoorsy the Front Range is, climbing is underserved,” Betterton said at the time.

Attorney David J. Warner of Wadsworth Garber Warner Conrardy is representing the company in bankruptcy proceedings.

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“We’re going to put the building back together,” he said.

Lanza is an executive with the Denver Recovery Group, a rehab center with 14 locations in the state, including two others on Colfax. Last week, the company purchased 4115 E. Colfax Ave., a 3,500-square-foot former bank building on a 0.9-acre lot, for $2.6 million, according to public records.

“It’s obviously been very compromised by the homeless and vagrants that were in there,” Lanza said. “They stole a bunch of the electrical and HVAC and plumbing out of the building, so we’re going to fix that and put the building back to a usable state, and at that point we’re going to decide what we’re going to do with it.”

Doug Antonoff, CEO of Denver real estate firm Antonoff & Co., told BusinessDen the property was sold by his family. Records show they bought it for $550,000 in 2009. Antonoff represented the family in the sale along with Jeff Hirschfeld of Antonoff & Co. Brokerage. He noted that his family had leased the ground for decades before making the purchase.

“It’s been hard to get it leased and [a] sale for redevelopment has been difficult,” Antonoff said.

The building’s condition coupled with the large lot it sits on would’ve made an apartment complex with some retail ideal, Antonoff said.

“But because of the city’s high threshold of affordable housing requirement[s], everybody who we talked to who’s in that business is not interested, because it just didn’t make economic sense,” he said.

In a past life, the building was home to a Compass Bank branch. That company was acquired by PNC Bank in 2021, and PNC shut down the location and bought out the lease. Antonoff said the closure was due to it being a “conflicting location” with other nearby PNC branches.

The empty building left ownership with something of a real estate quagmire. Gamble and hold, hoping for a big payday from a developer once the Colfax bus rapid transit, or BRT, project is completed? Or take what you can get now and free up that equity for another investment?

When another of Antonoff’s brokers, Charles Nusbaum, approached him about his rehab center client buying the building, ownership went with the latter option.

“I don’t know what that end date looks like,” Antonoff said of the Colfax BRT project.

“They (his family) were like: We’d rather start getting some cash flow. We’re sick of dealing with the city of Denver, and [let’s] move on to something else.”

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It first opened at the mall 25 years ago, when the national chain made its debut in the Centennial State. CPK got its start with a Beverly Hills, California, location in 1985.

Its corporate headquarters did not respond to a request for comment from BusinessDen.

Mike Wilson, the mall’s general manager, told BusinessDen on Tuesday that a new business has already been secured for the space, but declined to answer specific questions.

CPK’s Colorado presence has been dwindling in recent years.

After CPK filed for bankruptcy in 2020, The Daily Camera reported that spots in Boulder and Colorado Springs had closed. The outlet also said the future of a now-shuttered Broomfield restaurant was also up in the air. It is unclear when that restaurant closed.

California Pizza Kitchen now has just one remaining Colorado location, at Park Meadows mall in Lone Tree, according to the company’s website.

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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.

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The local firm, best known for buying the shuttered Veterans Affairs hospital in eastern Denver, opened a glamping spot on the Grant side of Guanella Pass at the end of May.

Since then, 500 nature lovers have spent the night at Lostfork Basecamp, which has nine cabins, nine spaces for RVs and nine sites to pitch a tent. They have enjoyed nearby hikes, cold plunge pools, saunas and a man-made beach along Geneva Creek.

The plan is to add canvas tents with decks next year.

“The creek there flows into the north fork of the South Platte, so this area was kind of the forgotten fork,” said Skyler Moore, co-founder of Modus Real Estate, GM’s brokerage arm.

“And the reason we called it basecamp is because Geneva Ski Basin is up there,” fellow co-founder Ben Gearhart added. Charles Moore, who founded GM with Gearhart in 2014, is the third musketeer of the group.

That former ski area closed in the 1980s, but is sought out by backcountry skiers, who GM hopes will keep Lostfork hopping come wintertime. The 300-square-foot cabins come with a personal hot tub.

The spot also has a venue for weddings, concerts and other events, and Moore said nearly all event slots are booked through 2026. Being just over an hour from Denver was a big plus, Gearhart said, since there are no similar luxury campsites that close.

“That’s a big challenge in the wedding and camping worlds, to identify a spot 60 minutes from Denver with a mountainside river,” Moore said.

The pair said building out Lostfork took about two-and-a-half years and $3.7 million, including the cost of buying the 10 acres, 4 of which have been developed. Gaining the proper zoning and water rights were the two biggest hiccups, but once construction started, it was relatively smooth.

Cabins range from $175 to $550 depending on the date. An RV spot with a hookup goes for between $95 and $115, and a tent pad costs $75 to $85.

The pair have launched a bike race in an effort to make Lostfork a destination. The Lostfork Lung Buster’s 65-mile course takes riders over both sides of Guanella Pass to Georgetown and back, with 6,500 feet of vertical gain. The inaugural event was held this year shortly before Memorial Day, when the road over the pass opens to vehicles, and the plan is to do it annually.

Come wintertime, Moore and Gearhart plan to create a makeshift hockey rink in the RV park for pond skating enthusiasts. Snowshoeing and crosscountry skiing will also be draws, they said.

This is the first time the two have built a campsite. They said having a luxury oasis close to Denver was the biggest draw. They’d like to develop another, but said the importance of picking the right spot — with ample space, water and much to explore nearby — is not lost on them.

“Building in the mountains is tough,” Moore said. “And that’s something we learned the hard way, that you have to be hands on.”

Back in Denver, GM is looking to convert the former VA hospital into apartments.

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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.”

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