A construction crew works at 2235 Arapahoe St. in Denver on Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023. The neighboring building with scaffolding is Merchants, a furniture store. (Justin Wingerter/BusinessDen)
A 134-year-old property in Arapahoe Square has had many lives of late, all of them sad.
It has been a vacant and collapsing industrial building, a failed ax-throwing location, a never-opened hostel, a biohazard, a homeless encampment and a victim of four fires.
Now, it is an empty lot with an uncertain future that may be decided in a courtroom.
Adjacent to Great Divide Brewing once stood a three-story, 11,000-square-foot building at 2235 Arapahoe St. that housed Tony Capra Plumbing and Heating for several decades.
In 2018, the Canadian company Bad Axe Throwing planned to buy it and spend $300,000 to $400,000 on a buildout, but those plans fell through. So, on the eve of the pandemic in late 2019, it was sold for $2.6 million to a chain of high-end hostels from Austin, Texas.
But the building was still empty when, in the small hours of June 3, 2022, it caught fire. The blaze caused a partial roof collapse and badly damaged a furniture company next door.
The Denver Fire Department responds to a fire at 2235 Arapahoe St., next to Merchants Office Furniture, in June 2022. (Courtesy Brooke Wolf)
A recent lawsuit — one of two involving 2235 Arapahoe — explains what happened next.
All Star Environmental Services, a Commerce City company, said it was hired in October 2022 to do asbestos abatement at the site. Before it could, All Star got an email from Adrienne Oujezdsky, an executive with Native Hostel — the owner of 2235 Arapahoe.
“Because the homeless population decided to keep (expletive) us over, they have established a full village in and around the space, and there is now a biohazard issue necessitating clean up BEFORE abatement can happen,” her email said, according to All Star.
All Star said it did $9,000 worth of biohazard cleanup work. Then, after the site was contaminated by the area’s homeless population a second time, All Star was told to perform another round of cleanup last fall, it says.
With that finished, All Star applied for a demolition permit in November. Before it could get one, the City of Denver declared the building an emergency, took it over and demolished it.
“The emergency stems from the two fires last week (and numerous others since June) that further weakened the structure,” Gregg Thomas, the city’s environmental quality director, emailed All Star in January, “and the Denver Fire Department has said it is an imminent hazard for collapse, risking both trespassers’ lives and those of our first responders.”
Emily Williams, a spokeswoman for the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment, said the city’s demolition work was completed in May, with backfilling and regrading.
The empty lot at 2235 Arapahoe St. as it looked in April. Beyond the lot, damage to Merchants’ building can be seen. (Maia Luem)
All Star sued Native Hostel in July because, it said, it hasn’t been paid for that second round of cleanup or its work on the demolition permit. Native Hostel, which closed its Austin location in June, ignored that lawsuit, so a Centennial judge ordered it to pay $105,000 to All Star.
An hour before that order was issued last Wednesday, Native Hostel was sued for a second time. This time the plaintiff is Merchants, the furniture store next door to 2235 Arapahoe that was damaged in last summer’s fire. Merchants said it agreed to buy what is now the empty lot at 2235 Arapahoe in May, then Native Hostel reneged and refused to sell.
The lawsuit doesn’t mention a purchase price and a co-owner of Merchants did not respond to a request to discuss its plans. Michael Dickson, a developer in Austin who co-owns 2235 Arapahoe, also declined to weigh in on the future of the property last week.
Merchants is represented by Amanda Halstead with Mills Halstead & Zaloudek in Denver.
A construction crew works at 2235 Arapahoe St. in Denver on Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023. The neighboring building with scaffolding is Merchants, a furniture store. (Justin Wingerter/BusinessDen)
A 134-year-old property in Arapahoe Square has had many lives of late, all of them sad.
It has been a vacant and collapsing industrial building, a failed ax-throwing location, a never-opened hostel, a biohazard, a homeless encampment and a victim of four fires.
Now, it is an empty lot with an uncertain future that may be decided in a courtroom.
Adjacent to Great Divide Brewing once stood a three-story, 11,000-square-foot building at 2235 Arapahoe St. that housed Tony Capra Plumbing and Heating for several decades.
In 2018, the Canadian company Bad Axe Throwing planned to buy it and spend $300,000 to $400,000 on a buildout, but those plans fell through. So, on the eve of the pandemic in late 2019, it was sold for $2.6 million to a chain of high-end hostels from Austin, Texas.
But the building was still empty when, in the small hours of June 3, 2022, it caught fire. The blaze caused a partial roof collapse and badly damaged a furniture company next door.
The Denver Fire Department responds to a fire at 2235 Arapahoe St., next to Merchants Office Furniture, in June 2022. (Courtesy Brooke Wolf)
A recent lawsuit — one of two involving 2235 Arapahoe — explains what happened next.
All Star Environmental Services, a Commerce City company, said it was hired in October 2022 to do asbestos abatement at the site. Before it could, All Star got an email from Adrienne Oujezdsky, an executive with Native Hostel — the owner of 2235 Arapahoe.
“Because the homeless population decided to keep (expletive) us over, they have established a full village in and around the space, and there is now a biohazard issue necessitating clean up BEFORE abatement can happen,” her email said, according to All Star.
All Star said it did $9,000 worth of biohazard cleanup work. Then, after the site was contaminated by the area’s homeless population a second time, All Star was told to perform another round of cleanup last fall, it says.
With that finished, All Star applied for a demolition permit in November. Before it could get one, the City of Denver declared the building an emergency, took it over and demolished it.
“The emergency stems from the two fires last week (and numerous others since June) that further weakened the structure,” Gregg Thomas, the city’s environmental quality director, emailed All Star in January, “and the Denver Fire Department has said it is an imminent hazard for collapse, risking both trespassers’ lives and those of our first responders.”
Emily Williams, a spokeswoman for the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment, said the city’s demolition work was completed in May, with backfilling and regrading.
The empty lot at 2235 Arapahoe St. as it looked in April. Beyond the lot, damage to Merchants’ building can be seen. (Maia Luem)
All Star sued Native Hostel in July because, it said, it hasn’t been paid for that second round of cleanup or its work on the demolition permit. Native Hostel, which closed its Austin location in June, ignored that lawsuit, so a Centennial judge ordered it to pay $105,000 to All Star.
An hour before that order was issued last Wednesday, Native Hostel was sued for a second time. This time the plaintiff is Merchants, the furniture store next door to 2235 Arapahoe that was damaged in last summer’s fire. Merchants said it agreed to buy what is now the empty lot at 2235 Arapahoe in May, then Native Hostel reneged and refused to sell.
The lawsuit doesn’t mention a purchase price and a co-owner of Merchants did not respond to a request to discuss its plans. Michael Dickson, a developer in Austin who co-owns 2235 Arapahoe, also declined to weigh in on the future of the property last week.
Merchants is represented by Amanda Halstead with Mills Halstead & Zaloudek in Denver.
