Residents at the Fitzsimons Place apartment complex in Aurora on Aug. 5, 2024. (AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
An Aurora apartment complex at the center of national attention over the last two months is being listed for sale or master lease.
“I think it has the most options on what it can become out of all the things I’ve listed,” said Jason Hornik, a broker with Marcus & Millichap tapped to market 1568 E. Nome St.
The 99-unit, 73,000-square-foot Fitzsimons Place apartment building off Colfax Avenue in Aurora is owned by CBZ Management, based out of New York. The building has been empty since Aug. 13, when the city of Aurora forced residents to move out, saying the building was uninhabitable.
Before that happened, however, CBZ announced that the building and others it owned had become “the hub of gang operations” for the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Hornik thinks there’s an opportunity to turn the building around.
“It’s an opportunity you rarely come across: 99 units that you can do whatever you want with, two blocks from class A construction, two blocks from the hospital,” he said.
The building has an unused 5,000-square-foot basement that could be repurposed into amenity space, along with a courtyard onsite that could be spruced up into “something nice,” he said.
Hornik said he’s not determined an asking price. A CBZ owner confirmed the listing to BusinessDen.
Per a legal agreement between Aurora and CBZ, which was signed Aug. 12, the landlord has until February to “market the property in good faith for purposes of sale, ground or master lease, or other similar disposition” or may re-tenant the building if it is up to code, Aurora spokesperson Michael Brannen told BusinessDen.
Zev Baumgarten, whom Brannen described as the “property manager” at CBZ, has been charged with nearly 100 criminal counts — 42 counts of “unlawful vehicle” and 57 counts of “space and occupancy; responsibilities; structural standards; right of entry” — related to the building.
A trial on the matter is scheduled for February, but the city has agreed to dismiss the charges if CBZ abides by the terms of the agreement.
CBZ owns other apartment buildings in Aurora and Denver. A widely seen video of young men ascending a stairway with firearms was recorded at the CBZ-owned building at 1208 Dallas St. in Aurora.
Hornik said CBZ is not marketing any of its other local buildings for sale.
CBZ’s portfolio has been the center of a national political spotlight, receiving mention in the U.S. presidential debate earlier this month when former President Donald Trump said immigrants were “pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums.”
“You look at Aurora in Colorado. They are taking over the towns. They’re taking over buildings,” Trump said.
Aurora police have acknowledged Tren de Aragua’s presence in the area, but spokesman Brannen said “the city and police still have not been able to document any ‘gang takeover’ at any of the CBZ Management properties.
“We have been consistent in stating that although the city and police were aware of gang activity at this property, this activity is immaterial to and separate from the city’s code enforcement actions at the property and the building’s inhabitability. The city has documented substantial, longstanding, unresolved code violations and other poor conditions at the property for the last few years,” Brannen said.
