PRIVATE RIGHTS VS. PUBLIC INTEREST IN SPEER DEVELOPMENT
Speer neighborhood condo building is the latest front in Denver’s historic preservation tug of war
In an echo of the 2019 controversy around the since-saved Tom’s Diner building on Colfax, a landmark application filed by Denver residents against the will of the people who own the property is headed to the City Council.
The application seeks to preserve Carmen Court, the distinctive, yellow-toned condo complex across from Hungarian Freedom Park at the intersection of Emerson Street and East First Avenue. The 95-yearold building is slated to be demolished to make way for a five-story, 110-unit assisted living complex as the seven owners of its six condo units collectively move to sell the property to Houston-based developer Hines. The owners filed for a certificate of demolition eligibility in March, setting off the ongoing landmark dispute.
The Denver City Council updated the rules for designating a building as a city landmark last September.
One of the goals of the update was fostering more dialogue and collaboration between opposing sides in owner-opposed landmark cases. Carmen Court is the first property to go through the new process which extends the waiting periods for demolition permits (up to 60 days if three city residents notify staff members of their intent to file a landmark application) and man
dates meetings between the sides managed by a city-provided mediator.
As they prepare for their Council hearing, Carmen Court’s owners say city leaders need to take another look at that ordinance. They believe it has trampled their property rights and jeopardized their futures at a time of deepening economic uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The process itself, including mediation, did not feel owneroriented,” said Katie Sisk, who has owned and lived in her Carmen Court condo for nine years. “This isn’t Union Station. This is not a church. These are people’s homes. Private homes. That process needs to be revisited.”
Terrie Curry, a Carmen Court owner/resident for eight years, said that the seven owners don’t always see eye-to-eye but came together and decided to sell almost four years ago. The cost of keeping up the building continues to rise and the premium they could get selling the entire property could pay for things like retirement, wiping out credit card debt and putting grandchildren through college.
“We’ve already waited. We’ve already been put on hold for a time here. Our risk is so much greater now,” Curry said.
For the people leading the charge to have Carmen Court added to the city’s list of landmarks, the stakes are different and, they argue, communitywide.
“We are very sympathetic to the owners’ wish to sell but it is our belief that this property is important to Denver’s history and reminding us of what our history means,” said Sarah McCarthy, one of the three Denver residents who filed the landmark application in late May.
Mccarthy, who lives about four blocks south of Carmen Court, is a member of the West Washington Park Neighborhood Association board and a professional historic preservation consultant. She said neighborhood residents have “averted our eyes to other demolitions near us because they didn’t rise to the level” of historic landmarks, but she couldn’t do that this time.
Mccarthy, her co-applicants and more than 140 supporters that are part of the Friends of Carmen Court group that formed in April argue the building, designed and built by Denverite Burt L. Rhoads in 1925, features a blend of Pueblo revival and Spanish revival architecture that is increasingly rare and meaningful in fast-churning Denver.
“It acknowledges the Indigenous population in its form,”
Mccarthy said. “It shows respect for the Indigenous population.”
Mark Harris, one of Mccarthy’s two co-applicants, said that passing Carmen Court on his bus to work for years is part of what inspired him to buy a home in the Speer neighborhood. He views the building as a community asset enjoyed by countless people who bike, jog and walk by.
“While the property has a few current owners, I know the history of Denver belongs to all of us,” Harris said Tuesday when presenting the application before the city’s Landmark Preservation Commission.
More than a dozen people spoke in favor of landmarking Carmen Court on Tuesday, outnumbering opponents more than three to one.
The nine commissioners eventually voted unanimously to support the application and forward it to the City Council. They agreed with the applicants on three out of four points:
• Carmen Court embodies the distinctive visible characteristics of an architectural style or type
• It represents an established and familiar feature of the neighborhood, community or contemporary city due to its prominent location or physical characteristics
• It promotes understanding and appreciation of the urban environment by means of distinctive physical characteristics or rarity.
They did not agree that the building is a significant example of the work of a recognized architect or master builder. Rhoads, an engineer for Gates Rubber Co. who designed a rooftop garden for one of the company’s factories and a few other buildings, did not hit that mark, the commissioners believed.
“I agree with what a majority of (commenters) said and that’s you don’t have to be an architect to design a good building,” commissioner Brad Gassman said before voting for the application.
A City Council hearing will present a higher bar for the applicants. Denver’s City Council has only approved one owneropposed landmark application in its history, according to city staff, the Beth Eden Baptist Church property at 3241 Lowell Blvd. That building was designated in 2014 and later became a brewery.
In the wake of the Tom’s Diner controversy, Councilwoman Kendra Black pushed for a rule change to require a supermajority of 10 council members to approve an owner-opposed application but that did not make it into the final update adopted in September. Black said Wednesday she still favors a higher threshold for owner-opposed applications but seven votes could make Carmen Court a landmark.
For the Carmen Court owners, Tuesday’s commission hearing was another letdown in a string of them since they filed for a certificate of demolition eligibility.
Gary Laura, who along with his wife, Mary Ann O’hara, has lived in Carmen Court for 23 years said he was disappointed the commissioners didn’t ask questions of the owners when given the chance. He believes the group discounted information he prepared and a report written by the Heritage Consulting Group, a firm hired by Hines and the owners to assess the property that found it didn’t pass muster as a Denver landmark.
The owners estimate they have combined to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into the buildings over the years but the 95-year-old structure has serious problems. Its gunite coating (a spray-on concrete akin to stucco) is past its operable life. The owners can no longer get by with spot patches to prevent damaging leaks. The building needs to be stripped and recoated, something Laura described as so prohibitively expensive the last contractor the owners had out to inspect the building refused the job.
Meanwhile, the applicants crowdsourced the $875 needed to file the landmark designation paperwork. If the building is landmarked, its upkeep will be left to the owners, Laura said.
“They’ll just walk away. Walk away and say, ‘Well, we stopped that from happening,’ ” Laura said.
Mccarthy said Friends of Carmen Court’s goal is not to stop the Hines project and prevent the owners from selling but to protect the building and see it folded into a historic reuse project. That was the focus of the mediated meetings earlier this year. As the application moves forward, Mccarthy is holding out hope a win-win solution can be reached.
“My view is until a building comes down there is always a chance,” Mccarthy said.
Eleventh-hour deals have been struck in historic landmark fights in Denver’s recent past. With the help of the city’s chief preservation organization, Historic Denver, a new buyer announced a deal to buy Tom’s Diner and preserve it late last year.
By hitting pause on the landmark designation process and meeting to discuss options, the former owner of the HowardBerkeley Park funeral chapel at 4346 W. 46th Ave. and the neighbors seeking to preserve it were able to reach an amicable arrangement in February. That building was sold to Denver’s GM Development.
Last month, the City Council voted to make the chapel the city’s 349th landmark. GM principal Ben Gearhart said the property now hosts church services on Sundays, is in talks to house a Montessori school starting next spring and is booking other programming and events,
Chris Crawford, managing director with Hines, said an adaptive reuse project incorporating the Carmen Court building into the senior living facility wouldn’t work because it would make the street-facing courtyard, 50% of the land, unusable. He said the company invited landmark applicants to find another developer but that didn’t happen. Both Hines and the owners have declined to share the price they have agreed on for the property.
Katie Sisk said the Carmen Court owners are open to further discussions but based on her experience so far she is not optimistic they will lead anywhere.
“Presuming positive intent, perhaps a win-win is possible,” she said. “We continue to be willing to negotiate and go back to the table.”
Joe Rubino: 303-954-2953, jrubino@denverpost.com or @rubinojc