Best News for a Downtown Institution

For decades, the downtown YMCA has offered low-cost housing both for people just passing through and for those trying to turn their lives around right here in Denver. And so last year, when the Y announced it would be selling the building in order to help finance needed renovations of its fitness facilities, many feared that housing would be converted into high-end lofts or offices. But then the Y agreed to sell the structure to the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, which will renovate the 189 rooms, continue to offer them to the public, and also allow the 95-year-old YMCA to rehab its recreation facilities. This is one real estate deal that includes something rare in the development world: a social conscience.