Parts of Lowry Town Center Smell So Bad That Businesses Are Leaving, Letters Claim

The smell of sewage and gas has been bothering businesses at the Lowry Town Center for years, forcing Petite Gateaux and Smashburger to leave the complex at 200 Quebec Street in 2025, according to court documents and a Denver City Council rep, but the shopping center’s owner has been unresponsive to the complaints so far.

The first business to leave the Lowry Town Center because of the alleged stench was Smashburger, which shuttered last May. The burger chain closed the location without paying the last three months’ rent and six years before its lease was set to expire, which came to light through a lawsuit filed by the shopping center’s owner, Weingarten Miller Lowry, in August.

Weingarten Miller Lowry LLC is the Colorado subsidiary of Kimco Realty, a New York-based company that owns shopping centers with grocery-store anchors. Weingarten Miller Lowry was formed in part by Denver developer Skip Miller in 1998, shortly before it won the contract to develop the Lowry Town Center on part of the former Lowry Air Force Base property. The complex opened in 2002, and Kimco took over all Weingarten Miller Lowry properties when the two companies merged in 2021.

“The landlord takes reports of sewer odors seriously and has responded promptly to investigate and address any concerns,” Jennifer Maisch, a spokesperson for Kimco Realty, tells Westword. “We devoted significant time and financial resources to this effort, engaging licensed professionals, conducting testing and inspections, and completing necessary repairs where items within the landlord’s control were identified.”

The Lowry Town Center is home to small, independent shops like a liquor store, a nail salon and a tailor, as well as a dentist, a dog washer and several places to eat. Colorado-based restaurant chains like Walter’s 303 and Chop Shop have locations there, alongside national names like Safeway, Starbucks and Palm Beach Tan. Residents from the surrounding Lowry neighborhood and nearby retirement communities like Brookdale often visit and shop at the town center.

Kimco owns eight Colorado shopping centers, including the Quincy Place Shopping Center in Aurora, the Highlands Ranch Shopping Center in Highlands Ranch and the Heritage West Shopping Center in Lakewood.

Before Weingarten Miller Lowry filed its lawsuit in August, other businesses complained to Councilmember Amanda Sawyer and Lowry business and neighborhood associations about the smell and the property manager’s lack of response. On May 13, Sawyer’s office sent a letter and email to the director of real estate for Kimco Realty, requesting “urgent action” for the “revitalization of Lowry Town Center.”

According to the letter from Sawyer’s office, the Lowry Town Center had a 31 percent vacancy rate as of late 2025, which is “multiple times higher than the average across Kimco’s Denver properties,” and the shopping center is dealing with “persistent issues such as an inoperable central fountain and ongoing sewer gas odors reported by tenants.”

The councilmember’s office also mentioned a proposed rent increase by Kimco despite lagging foot traffic, and warned that new businesses aren’t going to move into a smelly, struggling shopping center.

“These conditions are not only impacting current businesses but also diminishing the appeal and function of this essential community space,” Sawyer’s office wrote. “Adding to these challenges, several current tenants have raised repeated concerns about proposed rental increases that threaten the viability of their businesses. These increases come when foot traffic is down and maintenance issues remain unaddressed.”

A week later, Sawyer sent another letter to Kimco, this time copying a regional vice president. The May 30 follow-up demanded “detailed information” on the company’s plans to bring in more “high-quality, community-serving” businesses and remedy the smell and maintenance issues, including the broken fountain.

Sawyer also asked that Kimco present a “vision and plan for reinvestment in the public realm,” in order to market Lowry Town Center and its businesses “to bring residents back.”

Signed onto Sawyer’s letter were the heads of Lowry United Neighborhoods, the Lowry Foundation and the Lowry Business Alliance.

“We were concerned about businesses closing,” says Katherine Head, the LUN chair, adding that “we hesitate to discuss the odor that has been reported because we are concerned that it will drive customers away and be bad for all our already struggling businesses.

“LUN originally contacted KimCo because the Lowry Town Center is important to the quality of life in Lowry,” Head explains. “Having a vibrant town center is important to the health of our community.”

According to Maisch, Kimco “recently engaged a new brokerage team to support leasing activity and further strengthen the tenant mix” at the Lowry Town Center. A few of the store vacancies are the result of businesses “right-sizing” by moving to smaller spaces “that better matched their operational needs and allowed them to remain at the center,” including Timbuk Toys and Kismet Boutique, she says.

A Stinky Situation

Last August, Weingarten Miller Lowry filed a lawsuit in Denver County Court seeking to recover more than $48,000 in lost rent from Smashburger. According to the lawsuit, Smashburger began complaining about “sewer odors” in May 2024 that were “emanating into the premises from the common areas of the shopping center.”

The homegrown burger chain had opened its Lowry location a couple of years earlier; it was the first Denver Smashburger with a full-service bar and cocktail menu, the company touted at the time.

However, Weingarten Miller Lowry’s lawsuit argues that “to the extent such odors ever existed were, in fact, the result of tenant’s operations,” pointing to Smashburger’s plumbing and grease interceptor.

“The alleged odors, if any, were not caused by landlord and were not the result of any failure by landlord to maintain or repair the common areas,” the lawsuit reads. “There was nothing for plaintiff to maintain, repair or cure at the shopping center.”

Last March, Smashburger stopped paying its rent “based on purported ‘sewer odors'” and claimed the property owners “failed to take steps to address the issue,” according to the lawsuit.

In April, Smashburger sent a letter to Weingarten Miller Lowry, detailing plans to leave the Lowry Town Center. A month later, the restaurant was vacant.

Around the time Smashburger allegedly “abandoned” the Lowry Town Center, as the lawsuit describes it, Sawyer sent her letter to Kimco.

According to the lawsuit, which is still in court, Smashburger left without paying rent for March, April and May. Smashburger did respond to a request for comment.

What’s That Smell?

By November, Petite Gateaux had also left the Lowry Town Center, according to Michelle Rasul, one of the bakery’s owners. Rasul declined to say why the Lowry outpost, a second location of the Gateaux bakery on Speer Boulevard, had closed shop, but Sawyer’s office claims Gateaux wanted to escape the bad smell of “fumes.”

In an email to Westword, Matt Walter, Sawyer’s senior aide, says that “the owners mentioned they also closed that location due to the ongoing sewer smell and that they could not subject their employees and customers to the fumes on such a routine basis.” According to Walter, the councilmember’s office was in touch with Petite Gateaux for “nearly a year now about a pervasive sewer smell in and around the Lowry Town Center.”

“Their experience lines up with other complaints about a smell dating back as far as 2018,” Walter writes. “The council office has sent multiple letters to the property owner, Kimco Realty, asking them to look into this issue and make the necessary investment to mitigate the smell.”

Sawyer also asked several city agencies to get involved, including the Denver Department of Economic Development & Opportunity, the Department of Transportation & Infrastructure, the Department of Public Health & Environment, and Denver Community Planning & Development.

The DDPHE investigated the odors on December 9, according to Amber Campbell, a spokesperson for the department, and a DDPHE investigator determined that “the problem could be a deeper issue with the infrastructure out there.” The case was then handed off to DOTI and Community Planning & Development, Campbell says.

Community Planning & Development sent two plumbing inspectors to visit the shopping center and a couple of stores “to confirm complaints,” according to Alex Foster, a department spokesperson.

“However, the building and plumbing codes do not regulate ‘unpleasant’ odors,” Foster explains. “So we don’t have an official role. DOTI took over from there.”

According to Walter, DOTI “out of an abundance of caution…agreed to clean the city sewer lines around the Lowry Town Center to see if it helps improve the situation, though we have not seen any evidence which would suggest that it is the source of any smell in the area.”

Nancy Kuhn, a spokesperson for DOTI, says that the Wastewater Management Division first received a “sewer odor complaint” on December 17, and responded “per protocol” by visiting the shopping center to investigate.

DOTI cleared a city sewer line servicing the property “to make sure there is not an issue…or plugged or blocked in some way.”

An initial site visit and clearing the sewer lines cost the city about $3,200, according to Kuhn. However, during the site visit, “no odors were detected” by city investigators, so a follow-up visit was scheduled for a plumber, city inspector and property manager “to point out where and when the sewer odor is occurring,” she says.

“During that walk-through, a faint odor was observed emanating from grease interceptor devices behind a couple of the buildings,” Kuhn adds. “While likely not the singular cause of the odors that have been reported over the years, regular cleaning and maintenance of the private infrastructure was advised as a measure against odors.”

No one followed up on the original complaint after that second visit, and “whether or not the odor issue is resolved is unconfirmed,” according to Kuhn. In fact, the city never figured out what the smell was.

But the situation still stinks.

“It’s Always a Problem”

During a visit to the Lowry Town Center on February 24, several businesses told Westword that sewage and gas odors were still a problem, but none agreed to have their names or businesses identified.

On the condition of anonymity, employees at six different businesses said the smell had been an ongoing issue, with two saying the problem goes back more than a year. One business explained that the smell is worse on some days than on others. Another worker said “it’s always a problem.”

Not everyone’s noses are offended, though.

One business employee said that the smell “was a problem, but it’s not any more. It’s much better now.” Another person said “it doesn’t affect us.” Meanwhile, Lowry Town Center staffers said the odors didn’t affect their businesses, but acknowledged that some neighboring shops had dealt with it.

In an email, Walter’s 303 Pizzeria owner Mike Kienast tells Westword that “we noticed a brief sewer odor in the restroom areas in August but only at night.”

The general managers at the Lowry location “understood that Kimco Property Management had contractors inspect the plaza’s sewer systems. The City of Denver was also contacted, and local grease traps and sewer infrastructure were reviewed to ensure compliance with maintenance requirements,” Kienast explains.

“Since that time, we haven’t detected any recurring odor and haven’t received related guest complaints,” he adds. “This appeared to be a few isolated occurrences and did not persist or impact our dining room or overall guest experience at Walter’s 303.”

While at the shopping center on a windy Wednesday, a faint hint of a diesel-like smell momentarily came up from around the benches where the fountain is disabled. A couple sitting there said they didn’t smell anything.

Other people walking through the shopping center said they’d never smelled the described odors, including shoppers who live in the area and use the Safeway regularly.

The sewer openings along the perimeter of the town center give off a slight port-a-potty-like smell. Some of the nearby businesses give off stronger smells, like the coffee at Starbucks and the rotisserie chickens at Safeway.

“Lowry Town Center remains an active neighborhood retail destination,” Maisch says. “We continue to see interest from restaurant and service-oriented businesses.”

So, has the stench disappeared? Does it come and go? Or is it something not all noses can detect, á la asparagus urine?

We’ll keep our nostrils open.