AURORA | For the bulk of its almost 50 years, the Fan Fare building on Havana Street has just sat there — empty, unwanted and ugly.
Now, after every idea floated for redeveloping the property ended with a thud, city officials have opted to buy it for at least $2.7 million. The city’s plan is to knock Fan Fare down, maybe as early as spring 2013, and hope that the cleaned-up parcel is purchased and redeveloped into something useful.
Andrea Amonick, the city’s manager of development services, said that because the property is blighted and the building is so damaged it can’t be saved, the best hope for cleaning up the area was for the city to take the reins on the project.
“The best chance of redevelopment would occur if the (city) owned it and was in control of the future development,” she said.
Council voted Nov. 19 to purchase the site through the Aurora Urban Renewal Authority for $2.7 million with Fan Fare still standing, or for $4 million if the building is demolished. Either way, Fan Fare is slated for demolition. Council will decide Dec. 10 which route to take, after a few more environmental studies that are slated for completion by Nov. 30.
The road that led to the city buying Fan Fare has been long, slow and frustrating for seemingly everyone involved, and it’s been littered with failed ideas for replacing the weird windowless building with the bulbous roof.
Michael Sheldon, who represents the group that has owned Fan Fare since 1982, said there have been several ideas in recent years to redevelop the site, but each time, the idea failed for a variety of reasons.
In 2004 the building’s owners filed plans with the city to tear down Fan Fare and build two high-rise condominiums on the site. The building would have been the largest in the city, and officials said they could help turn that stretch of Havana Street into a posh neighborhood.
“There was a time when the high-rise towers was viable, when there were low interest rates and appropriate construction costs,” Sheldon said.
But the developers needed some incentives from the city to pull off the project, he said, and as those negotiations dragged on, that viability dwindled because of skyrocketing construction costs and a difficult economy.
After that, the owners briefly floated an idea to clean up the building and use it as a storage facility until they could get the tower project moving again. But Sheldon said after some research, the storage idea proved a dud because the clean up would have been too costly.
Then a few years ago, Sheldon said the owners started discussions with the city about building smaller condos on the property — about four or five stories tall. That plan called for the city helping the owners obtain federal “brownfield” money to clean the property of its asbestos, Sheldon said. Eventually, that plan stalled but the discussions eventually led to the city deciding that buying the property made the most sense.
“Discussions about using federal brownfields money led us to the place we are today,” he said.
Sheldon said that after owning the property for three decades, the ownership group decided selling to the city was the best option.
“There are many things including the economy, age of the ownership group and other factors that play into these kinds of decisions,” he said. “Suffice it to say that I think this is a solution that will benefit everyone, including the Havana north community.”
Along the way, Fan Fare found some supporters, including the Aurora Historic Preservation Commission who in 2010 launched an effort to save the building. The building was one of the first large-scale shopping centers in the area, and the commission pointed to its unique architectural design that uses exterior supports instead of interior columns to prop-up the ceiling as a reason to save it.
Gordy Tucker, the chairman of the commission, said the commission’s efforts always ran into problems, particularly because the building had fallen into such disrepair.
“We kept hitting blind alleys,” Tucker said.
Unfortunately for Tucker and others who want to see the building saved, the people who want Fan Fare gone outnumber those who want to keep it, and it looks like the people who want it gone will win out.
Even if the building is razed, Tucker said the preservation commission will ask the city to allow them to document the process so there is a record of the building. They’d also like to save the unique mural on the front of the building, if possible.
“That would be, I guess, the best of a bad situation,” he said.
Amonick said the response from the neighborhood around Fan Fare has been overwhelmingly in favor of redevelopment. Officials hope the area can be redeveloped into a mixed-use property that has residential units and a small amount of retail, she said.
As they prepare to sell it, Sheldon said the owners still believe the property is valuable. And even after they spent more than $4 million to buy it in 1982, and paid thousands in property taxes every year since, they don’t regret buying the property.
“It’s right at the doorstep of Fitzsimons and Lowry,” he said. “It’s an outstanding location.”
I just hope they don’t replace one ugly low end building with another. Please push for something that improves the area greatly. North Aurora is turning around due to the influx of new jobs. Its an opportunity to continue that turnaround.
This deal that relies on the Aurora Water Department’s piggy bank, makes one maudlin over the lost opportunities of Lend Lease and Gaylord; these two projects did not hand over an actual big bag of cash to anyone, these projects merely gave up the City of Aurora’s future revenue streams.
Mr. Sheldon believes this is a good deal, the City of Aurora could hand the owners of Fanfair a big bag of cash, four million dollars for a property with an appraised value of 450 thousand dollars, by golly he is right it is a good deal for someone.
At least know something about the subject before posting. Check your “appraised value” statement, then re-post.
The Arapahoe County has an appraised value for the Fanfair property of $450,000. The 4 million dollar to buy Fanfair is 9 times that market value.
Do you have another value for the property?
The City really should take the $2.7 million “as-is” deal. Otherwise, expect remediation and demolition to drag on for months (or years) and to have Messrs Sheldon and Buchwald come back for more money to finish the job.
Forgot to mention: this deal (whether you approve of it or not) is happening ONLY because Steve Hogan and Skip Noe replaced Ed Tauer and Ron Miller. Hogan wants to make things happen; Tauer mostly wanted to stop things from happening. Which way you prefer depends on your view of the role of city government.
… it was called “Fan FAIR”, not Fan Fare … anyone who was ’round these parts “back-in-the-day” when Fan Fair was the place to shop would know that … I’m weary of young reporters perhaps not from the area or maybe relying on spellcheck making these kinds of glaring errors in community interest stories … I’ve unfortunately become used to this mangling of local nuances in the rapidly deteriorating Denver Post but I hope attention to detail here at The Sentinel does not follow that same path ! … SIGH …
Yes, the name was “Fan Fair.” I remember shopping there as a kid–it was a big deal when it opened, and the building was seen as architecturally innovative. However, I wouldn’t blame the reporter… it’s listed as “Fanfare” on the City Council agenda. I’m not sure why there’s confusion about this–all anyone has to do is look at Fan Fair Liquors next door. They opened shortly after the store. I’m not sure if they were actually affiliated with the Fan Fair store, but they picked their name and modeled their sign on the old Fan Fair logo.
The liquor store sports the original logo of Fan Fair Discount City. The liquor store had to be separated from the main facility because of the liquor laws of the 60s. Growing up on Del Mar Parkway off Havana in that era, I remember shopping Fan Fair with my parents on a regular basis before Woolco and Alden’s took over discount retailing in the area a few years later.
FYI, Bruce:
In 1965, Fan Fair Discount City closed. Western Electric used the building until 1983, but the site has been empty and hasn’t seen any private investment since.
A group of developers bought it in 1982 and renamed it “Fanfare.” City documents have since called the building “Fan Fare,” though the name remains a point of contention for many longtime residents.