That month, cops recommended boarding up the home after responding to a break-in. The developer had told neighbors he planned to renovate or demolish the property, but neither ever happened. A year later, in November 2022, people began squatting at the rundown residence to stay warm during the winter.
A family that lives next door continuously reached out to the owner — in an attempt to warn them about there being fire hazards and other dangerous things at the address — but their cries fell on deaf ears. In January, a blaze lit up the West Colfax house.
“I'm a firefighter in the metro,” says Jeffrey Moore, one of the concerned family members. “It’s pretty frustrating for me to call it in and witness that. I know that a lot of people could have been hurt or injured when that went down.”
After the fire, Moore was concerned for the responding firefighters and officers, as well as the people who had been squatting in the home. But he was also upset because he and his partner, Evie Burr, had been trying to get the property owner, Eric Ely, to properly board up the home for months over their safety concerns.
City tax assessor records show that the property is owned by RPAC Capital Growth, for which Ely is listed as an agent. Moore and Burr showed Westword documentation of numerous communications with Ely, notifying him that people were living at the property and asking him to take steps to secure it. They finally got a response after the fire, with Ely showing up in person.
People have brought in numerous belongings in the time the home has been left empty by developers.
Courtesy of Jeffrey Moore
Moore and Burr say Ely’s business partner was at the meeting, too, where they blamed the lack of care at the Newton Street property on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
To Moore and Burr, it seemed clear that RPAC Capital Growth would continue its pattern of neglect.
But someone else wound up taking responsibility for the fire: One of the people who had been squatting came to their door in March, bringing them their newspaper and apologizing for the havoc next door.
“I told him that I wasn't stoked that there were people squatting there and it made us feel unsafe, but I said I was really mostly upset with the owner for creating this neglect that allowed for the situation to happen,” Moore says.
It struck them that the owners didn’t offer any apology, but this person had.
Issues had been coming up at the house since the spring of 2021, according to Moore and Burr, who bought their home in March, about the same time as Ely bought the neighboring property. Almost immediately, Moore reached out to exchange contact information and asked about the fence and trees on the shared property line so he could complete some yard work and build a new fence.
“I hope that we can work together to make a positive impact and contribution to the block and neighborhood,” Moore wrote in a message viewed by Westword. That never happened.
At the time, two women in their sixties were living at the house but had to leave because Ely had said he needed to complete some updates to get the place ready to rent to new people. It didn't take long for the problems to start piling up after that.
“It started with weeds and disrepair,” Moore remembers. “There's been two incidences of stolen vehicles dumped on the property that were removed by city services. There's been multiple break-ins.”
Moore and Burr shared many of their correspondences with Ely with Westword, but Ely did not respond to multiple calls or emails asking for comment. The neighbors informed the owner whenever people would break in to squat or when problems would occur, but they say he usually didn’t respond.
“The smoke detector was always chirping, mail was piling up,” Moore continues. “There's trash everywhere. The weeds are bad. The owners were notified about people who were using the chimney to set fires to stay warm.”
Moore and Burr would often call the DPD, which would respond. But within a few days, they say, the vagrants would return.
Even after the fire, the neglect continued: In one text exchange, Burr told Ely the property needed to be boarded up again, and he texted back, “Feel free to deal w it! im out of the country.” When Burr responded that they shouldn’t have to be responsible for Ely’s neglect, he texted back just two words: “Denver police.”
“There's this weird power struggle where no matter what, we're kind of tied together,” Moore says. “If he stays and develops it, he's always gonna be there. If he doesn't develop it but it's demolished and it stands vacant for years, he can do that. … It's just this really weird thing where we tried our best to make it friendly and helpful and cooperative at the beginning, but it just hasn't turned into that.”
Between January 2022 and July 2023, the property received multiple vegetation citations from the city. A Denver Community Planning and Development spokesperson confirms it is on the city’s neglected and derelict building list. Because of this, the city makes sure it is boarded up and monitors vegetation and trash. As Burr and Moore see it, though, that should be on Ely — not on overloaded city entities.
“The frustration isn't just with this property owner, but it's at the grander scale,” Burr says. “Denver's in a housing crisis. … This could have been a perfectly fine house had he followed through at the beginning. It's just really sad and disrespectful to a neighborhood that is targeted as an equity community where we need housing.”
Until May 2023, 1350 Newton and West Colfax were included on the city’s Neighborhood Equity & Stabilization Index, which helps identify areas in Denver that are vulnerable to economic or cultural change.
“While we have identified eighteen priority neighborhoods that our NEST team utilizes for their work, it is important to note the index doesn't exclude neighborhoods, and we examined all 78,” says Shelby Morse, director of marketing and communications for Denver Economic Development & Opportunity. “West Colfax is still included in the analysis, but not identified in the eighteen most susceptible to change based on the indicators being used.”
“We think that the greater story is the more important one, and that's the neglect of this community and other underserved neighborhoods,” Burr says. “It's not right that people are left on the street when there are houses that are vacant. Developers are just sitting on them.”
CPD adds that it can see there are many complaints at the address, and each time there is a complaint, investigators are sent out to issue violations.
Despite promising to demolish the home in October 2021, Ely did not make any move toward actually doing so until August 2023, when he applied for demolition permits with the city, according to CPD.
CPD says the property should still be maintained for safety as the redevelopment process occurs.
Moore says they were notified that demolition would take place between now and March 2024. He’s worried about asbestos and other contaminants that could be exposed during that process, but he doesn’t have much faith that Ely will actually communicate with them about any such risks.
“The developers see these communities as nothing more than a matter of money, dollar signs, and ‘projects,’” he wrote in an email to Westword about the predicament. “But the reality is that people live here and they don't deserve to be treated like this or to live in frustrating and unsafe conditions because of the repeated actions (or inactions) of others.”
