Coding school ordered to pay $450K to its landlord

A small computer programming school must pay back rent to a downtown landlord that it accused of bullying.

On March 21, Denver District Court Judge Jill Dorancy ordered the Turing School of Software and Design to pay $456,196 to Los Angeles-based CIM Group.

The Turing School is a nonprofit computer programming academy. Its seven-month courses, which have been fully remote since 2020, cost $26,200.

The school opened in 2014 at 15th and Blake, then moved in 2017 into a windowless basement suite at 1331 17th St.

CIM Group, which owns 1331 17th St., sued the school in November, accusing it of not paying rent timely since June. CIM initially used the school’s $112,500 security deposit to cover rent, until that money ran out. The school then ignored CIM after that, the lawsuit claimed.

“It is unfortunate that our megacorp landlord has chosen to take these matters public as a means to bully and intimidate a small, local, educational nonprofit organization,” Jeff Casimir, founder and executive director of the Turing School, told Businessden at the time.

“With the massive vacancy rates in downtown Denver and no innovation or concessions from these real estate corporations, clearly they are turning to the courts to try and solve their financial woes as a ‘prayer for relief,’” he said, referring to a phrase common in lawsuits. “We will work to resolve these matters in the best interest of our students.”

But the school never responded to the lawsuit, so CIM Group was awarded $456,196 in a default judgment last week: $433,773 for rent and $22,423 for legal fees. Casimir did not answer Businessden’s requests for comment about that judgment.

CIM bought the 13-story, 220,000-square-foot office building at 1331 17th St. for $103 million in 2018. It was represented in the case by attorneys Steven Abelman and Courtney Bartkus in the Denver office of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, who declined to comment.