Local retail real estate firm adds to holdings with East Colfax purchase

Tom Secrist had been living off of East Colfax Avenue for decades when, in 2015, he bought a dilapidated retail strip just east of the Bluebird Theater.

“That part of Colfax was dead. I love just buying a building and repurposing it … I did it more for the street than for me,” Secrist said.

This month, nine years later, Secrist sold the 3401-3421 E. Colfax Ave. property for $1.72 million — a 442% jump from the $317,500 he originally paid.

The buyer was The Robert L. Naiman Co., which specializes in retail real estate.

“I think that it takes a Denver resident or real estate professional to realize the quality of this real estate,” said Required Properties broker Justin Brockman. He, along with Chris Student, Winters Heafey and JB Hochman brokered the deal on behalf of Secrist.

The Naimans — father Robert, son Noah and daughter Nikki — said they plan to hold the property as part of the company’s investment holdings. The property’s two tenants — trendy neighborhood bar Middleman and restaurant Q House — will remain there, with leases that don’t expire for another three years.

It’s Noah’s first start-to-finish real estate transaction since joining the family business in January 2023.

“I grew up learning the business,” Noah Naiman said. “We’d go look at a property and get lunch together.”

The 63-year-old Secrist, meanwhile, is on the other end of a career.

“[It’s] my last hurrah. I’m ready to retire and play golf and relax a bit,” he said, adding he’ll continue “dabbling” in real estate.

Originally from Iowa, Secrist moved to Colorado in 1984. Since 1986, he’s been living just off Colfax.

In the mid-90s, he began establishing a real estate portfolio, working his fulltime job by day and rehabbing apartments by night.

“It was a lot of toiling in my 30s and 40s,” he said.

Secrist was eventually able to focus full-time on his holdings. In 2000, he bought 3237 E. Colfax Ave. and renovated the building to make way for the Atomic Cowboy, which opened four years later and still operates there.

As part of that transaction, Secrist controlled the east and west ends of the retail strip, and a house around the corner at 1515 Adams St. He’s now looking to sell those properties separately, for a combined $3.45 million.

Then there’s the property he just sold. Secrist said he had to do a nearcomplete demolition of the previous building at 3401-3421 E. Colfax Ave.

“I thought I just needed to slap on a new store front and bring in more power and HVAC, beef up the floor and we’d be good,” Secrist said. “But I ended up having to tear down the whole thing except for three walls.”

The roof, he said, looked like it was sourced from a newspaper ad asking for free lumber, given the poor quality of the wood. After spending a “substantial” sum, the renovations were completed in 2016. The bars moved in the next year.

“[These] guys are the perfect tenants of what I envisioned for this place,” he said.