After a three-and-a-half hour hearing yesterday before the Board of Appeals that considers objections to decisions by the city’s planning department, Jesse Morreale got the okay to immediately reopen his First Avenue Hotel building — which had been closed by the city three weeks ago, slapped with notices to vacate…
Three weeks after the city red-tagged the First Avenue Hotel, home of El Diablo and Sketch, the building remains dark while owner Jesse Morreale tries to figure out why the city suddenly decided the 106-year-old structure presents such a safety threat. This morning’s Board of Appeals hearing could be enlightening…
Head for the hills if you want to own a real piece of history — or just see history in the taking. At 1 p.m. today, a 6.8 acre piece of property in Central City will be auctioned off, complete with five historic brick and stone buildings…
Just two months ago, Aurora was looking at the dawn of a new economic era. The Colorado Economic Development Commission had just recommended the proposed Gaylord Entertainment hotel/resort/convention complex receive $81.4 million from the state’sRegional Tourism Act program, on top of the $300 million in subsidies that Aurora had already…
Dear Mexican: I know I might sound like a gabacho borracho, but I’m really just a gringo trying to make progress toward getting work legally in Mexico, a side of the immigration debate we rarely hear about. Most gringos that move to Mexico are students at UNAM, or they are…
After a weekend hiatus that included Barack Obama’s visit to Aurora, the presidential campaigns are no longer on pause to honor the victims of the theater shooting. (Count on the tragedy to come up at the first presidential debate — October 3 in Denver.) And Colorado, too, is gearing up…
Will the second time be a charm? A screening committee has submitted a trio of finalists for Denver’s independent monitor job to Michael Hancock — two months after the mayor’s choice to fill the vacancy left by Richard Rosenthal turned him down, and the mayor declined to extend the offer…
Dear Mexican: I was wondering about the Spanish going into Mexico and taking the gold and artifacts away from the Indians. Could the Mexican government ask for the gold back? What do you think? Raider of the Lost Chonis Dear Mexican: Why doesn’t Mexico’s president demand that all nations and/or…
Mayor Michael Hancock will deliver his State of the City address at 10 a.m. today, a year after he took office. The setting for the speech, City Park, was chosen over a month ago, but it symbolizes two of the major (and overlapping) challenges he’ll face over the next three…
Erik Osborn wanted to be a big-time developer, but his plans almost landed him in the big house. In 2009, a group of high-profile investors — including Dealin’ Doug Moreland — accused Osborn of stealing $255,000 intended for the pricey One Lincoln Park condominium complex downtown and another project in…
More than two decades ago, Curt Fentress got Denver International Airport off the ground, designing the iconic tent-roofed terminal after the Perez Group’s plans crashed and burned. But when the city decided to expand DIA, it snubbed Denver-based Fentress, going with starchitect Santiago Calatrava…
If city officials find a hundred members of a gay men’s chorus picnicking in front of City Hall today, they have only themselves to blame. The cast of Von Trapped, a coffee concert at the Buell this morning, were to have lunch at El Diablo — but that was before…
Gaylord Entertainment dumped its plans for a giant hotel/convention center/resort in Aurora, and GE has postponed its big new plant in Aurora — if not ditched it entirely. But at least Aurora had control over one business deal: It had no problem selling its water to an oil and gas…
Dear Mexican: Magdalena has worked for me many years — fifteen, to be exact. She came over as a mojada with her two little girls when they were four and six. The girls went to school, but only until middle school, because they are undocumented; they can’t get a job…
“Who wants to fight government, especially over $10?” That’s what David Scherer asked himself when he thought the U.S. Forest Service was incorrectly charging a $10 fee to everyone who drove up Mount Evans — even drivers who did not stop as they took in the view. But as he…
Katie Reinisch managed to keep her cool through four years at the Colorado Legislature, when she was communications director for the Senate Democrats, so it’s not surprising that she’s having a blast running her own frozen-yogurt spot. “It’s so fun, and I’m learning so much,” she says. “I’m actually creating…
Mrs. J. J. Brown was never known as Molly. She cared much more about helping the poor in turn-of-the-last-century Denver than she did with crashing what passed for high society. She did not strip to her corset while rowing lifeboat #6 after the sinking of the Titanic, although she kept…
The hottest summer on record could also be one of the driest. At the end of June, Governor John Hickenlooper requested that much of this dry, dry state be declared a federal disaster area because of “drought, low snow pack, excessive heat, and high winds” that had started on January…
Colorado’s urge to do something, anything, to help those affected by the wildfires has spread like, well, wildfire. Caravans of cars have descended on Colorado Springs, heading right past that IKEA sign on I-25, with piles of donated goods for victims of the Waldo Canyon fire. If the state were…
Dear Mexican: Suppose the United States government and the American public were as progressive and conscious of our country’s true self-interest as are, for example, many European countries, and suppose this had been true in the decades immediately following World War II, when Northern and Western Europe subsidized the development…
On July 1, Metropolitan State College officially became Metropolitan State University of Denver, ending a process that had dragged on for four years, through research, debate and, finally, the approval of the Colorado Legislature. But the school in the heart of the city really made its name last month, when…
This has been one hot summer — and it’s bound to get even hotter. Tempers are flaring over the handling of the wildfires, and rumors are heating up over their possible cause: terrorists are setting the fires. And President Barack Obama’s visit to the Waldo Canyon fire today is fanning…
