It seems that Aurora will rectify one the community’s biggest mistakes after more than 50 years, and taxpayers get to fork over about $4 million to make it happen.
Realistically, there was no other way to solve the problem of Aurora’s biggest and more glaring eyesore: the Fan Fare fiasco.
Unless after all these years you’ve never, ever driven on north Havana Street near the part of the road where four lanes turns into two lanes and eventually crosses East Colfax Avenue, you know what Fan Fare is, even if you didn’t know it’s name. It’s the massive derelict, concrete-marshmallow humped monstrosity at 333 Havana St.
It really is debatable whether the giant concrete thing was sheer genius, commercial-retro architecture from 1962, or whether it was the biggest waste of concrete ever to scar the Earth. There is, however, no arguing that in its present, decaying state, it’s a nightmare to the neighborhood and the entire city as well.
This week, Aurora lawmakers agreed to purchase the mess from owners Capitol Financial Ventures LLC for about $4 million. The ramshackle building is plagued with asbestos. The 10-acre lot is nothing but disintegrating asphalt and weeds. Some deal, you might say.
In fact, the deal has a lot of people unhappy because it essentially rewards Capitol Financial Ventures for making a lousy business decision to buy the thing in 1982 and then inflicting it on the neighborhood and the city for the next 30 years instead of cleaning it up or tearing it down.
Those city residents and business owners who’ve had Aurora’s code police breathing down their necks for un-shovelled sidewalks, too-tall weeds or graffiti in the alley have every right to be angry that the city would allow the Fan Fare derelict to get so bad for so long, and then write a market-value check to the owners for our trouble.
But here’s what’s really happening. After years of having this mess on Havana, the city is finally able to do what Capitol Financial Ventures couldn’t: make it go away.
It’s not as if the owners wanted to pay about $10,000 a year in property taxes for an environmental disaster that had all the economic appeal of the Love Canal. To develop the land, which was and is hardly the most sought-after real estate in the city, the building had to come down at a cost of about $3 million. Rather than fork it out and then face a loss just to unload the mess, Capitol Financial Ventures just sat on it — for about 40 years.
Sure, the city, county or state could eventually have gone in and declared the building a public nuisance, but that probably would have tied the property up in court and cost taxpayers money no matter what. All roads lead to the city taking control of the property, and taxpayers paying millions to clean it up and sell it back to a new developer.
What the city council did this week is move northwest Aurora toward revitalization instead of setting out once again for, well, nowhere.
This is the gritty, unpopular work of urban renewal. Taxpayers have to pay to get rid of disasters like Fan Fare or old Colfax motels and discount the price of the land so new businesses will move in and drag the community back from the brink of becoming a ghetto. In theory, whatever is built there will directly or indirectly generate more tax revenue than it cost taxpayers to fix this mess. Ten acres on a major boulevard near the simmering Anschutz medical campus and the emerging Lowry redevelopment really does have possibility.
In a better world, Capitol Financial Ventures would have paid the full price of their bad business decision. In that same world, however, the city would never have allowed this to get this far. Welcome to the real world.
Reach Editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com
. . .the massive, derelict, concrete marshmellow humped
monstosity. . . couldn’t have described it better!
Thanks Dave for the laugh — sometimes you are a RIOT ! ! !
Dave, while not disagreeing with your conclusion, I find your facts suspect and ironic that you applaud Council’s policy of painting bulls eyes around bullet holes for their policy of capitalistic cronyism.
I contend the the Council Members do not know the market value of Fan Fair. Aurora’s Council Members have an appraisal of $450,000 from the Arapahoe County Assessor,(his determination of market value), and independent appraisal of $4,000,000 for the highest and best use of the property, (the value of the the property cleaned that provides the owner the highest possible return for the owner), which may or may not reflect the market value of the Fan Fair property.
The market value of the Fan Fair property today should be the $4,000,000 HBU value minus the cost to clean up the property; unfortunatly the only estimate to clean up the Fan Fair property comes from Michael Sheldon and the property owners. The Urban Renewal Authority does not yet have an independent study to determine the cost of cleaning the Fan Fair property. Michael Sheldon’s projection to clean the property, 1.3 million creates a market value of 2.7 million dollars for the property, your figure of 3 million dollars to clean the property creates a market value of 1 million dollars. The independent study has yet to determine what it will cost to clean the property so their market value is not known.
The future development and revenue projection based on crystal ball gazing are interesting and this is what I see looking into that crystal ball. The cleaned property will sit vacant for five years, the Urban Renewal Authority will pay the interest on the property for five years, in the sixth year Michael Sheldon or the AEDC will present a buyer willing to purchase the vacant Fan Fair property at a discount, the new owner will propose to develop the property if they receive the maximum allowable TIF incentive, the Aurora Sentinel will appluad that City Council’s marksmanship as they paint another bulls eye around another bullet hole, and the unpaid loan balance will be transferred to the Parks Department so they can close a swimming pool to pay off the loan.
Mr. Perry,
I would suggest you research your “facts” closer before writing an op-ed piece. Your first error is that Capitol Financial Ventures and it’s principal Herbert Buchwald have not owned the property since 1982 but rather 1995 through a back door and illegal issuance of a treasurers deed. And at most with suspicious abatements, assessments, tax protest and illegally issued tax deeds; Mr. Buchwald has less than $200,000 invested and probably closer to $100,000. And it was Mr. Buchwald that caused the issues with the asbestos. Before he took control of the property, it was continuously monitored by the State Health Department and found that while it contained asbestos, it was NON-FRIABLE!. (That means that the building could have been used for any purpose and been safe.) It was only when Mr. Buchwald did not keep up the maintenance on the building (starting in 1996) that the roof drains plugged and the inner ceiling became wet and the asbestos became friable. That did not deter Mr. Buchwald, who tried to remove the asbestos without a permit; not even telling the workers he hired they were dealing with asbestos before he was shut down by the health department. In 1993, Aurora had the chance to have the building given to them for use as a community and recreation center but turned it down because they thought that the location they had picked out by Regis High School would be a much better location even though they were advised that it should be located in the north end of town.
Mr. Buchwald is the head of MDC corporation ( where he earns in excess of $450,000 yearly), one of the largest developers in the State. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that a multi-million dollar enterprise cannot make this work and they are dumping it on the city for $4.2M?
It doesn’t pass the smell test does it Mr. Perry?
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Interesting assertions. Can you post the tax deeds?