The rundown Aurora apartment complex officials shuttered in August for health and safety issues — and plagued with crime that the landlord blamed on a Venezuelan gang takeover — has attracted at least one potential buyer, The Denver Gazette has learned.
The troubles at the apartment complex put Colorado's third largest city in the national spotlight right in the middle of a presidential race, in which crime and illegal immigration are among the biggest campaign issues.
Robert Foster, co-founder of the for-profit Courage Housing, said his model — which targets low-income housing for refugees — could be a working solution for the troubled property.
Under that model, roughly half of the 99 units at Aspen Grove would be reserved for refugees who have been processed by the U.S. State Department.
“In our view, they are some of the most overlooked renters in America,” Foster said.
Headquartered in San Diego and formed about two years ago, Courage Housing is an investment firm that builds and operate multifamily developments for “new Americans,” according to the company’s website.
The company operates in Washington state. If its bid to purchase Aspen Grove is successful, it would be the company’s first foray into Colorado.
Refugees, Foster said, undergo a rigorous screening process that includes more than a dozen background checks.
“The model that we have has a high probability of being successful in this situation,” Foster said. “There are 99 units and they need to be back in the inventory because we have a national affordable housing crisis.”
Foster said they are in the “early stages” of negotiation.
Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan prison gang, has expanded its footprint far beyond the South American country, establishing a foothold in the Denver metro area, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Described by the U.S. government as Venezuela’s “most powerful criminal gang,” authorities said it operates sex trafficking networks and exploits Venezuelan immigrants. Back in April, the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol warned Americans to "watch out for this gang."
The gang made headlines in Colorado after its members were accused of a jewelry heist, a beating, shootings, and barging into one of the Aurora apartment units with rifles.
Officials with CBZ Management — through its attorney and a PR firm — have said gang activity precluded its staffers from caring for the buildings.
A national law firm that investigated the claims said that, through violence and intimidation, the gang took over Whispering Pines — another complex owned by CBZ Management — and sought to collect up to half of the rent from leaseholders, drying up collections for the landlord.
City officials agreed to drop all charges against the owner in exchange for selling the property, leasing it — or a coming up with a “similar disposition” — as well as assuming up to $60,000 of the cost to board up and secure the building.
Neither CBZ Management’s counsel nor its spokesperson returned an email seeking comment Wednesday.
Communications between the City of Aurora and the apartment complex counsel show officials understood the Aspen Grove owners wanted the local government to board up the building in order to take back “control of the property” from a Venezuelan gang.
‘Doubtful it’s worth what the owner attempting to sell it for’
In August, Aurora officials boarded up and fenced off Aspen Grove, the 99-unit complex at 1568 Nome St.
Based in Brooklyn, CBZ Management operates rental apartments in New York and 11 properties in Colorado, including Whispering Pines and the Edge of Lowry in Aurora.
The Aspen Grove property was purchased in 2019 for $12.3 million.
Foster, who is working to get a rehab estimate, said he believes the asking price for the property is about $8.5 million.
“I’m doubtful it’s worth what the owner attempting to sell it for,” Foster said.
Aurora officials have accused the Aspen Grove owners of a laundry-list of issues that include rodent infestations, sewage backups and trash pileups, water leaks, shattered or missing windows and lack of heat and electricity.
Foster said — without elaborating — that he believes his group's venture would exceed code requirements and seek to partner with local resettlement nonprofits.
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman said last month on social media Monday that the city had offered — after earlier denying — police protection to Whispering Pines and the Edge at Lowry. Coffman’s offer also contained a not-so-veiled threat to shutter both apartment complexes if CBZ Management “does not assume responsibility for these properties and start providing routine services.”
Whispering Pines has 54 units, while The Edge at Lowry has 74, according to Aurora officials.
Whispering Pines and one of the buildings at The Edge at Lowry have since entered receivership, at the request of the lender. A district court judge recently found that — having failed to make timely monthly payments — that a receivership is necessary to protect the properties.
“We are thrilled that the property owners and managers have agreed to let a court-appointed, third-party receiver take control of these private properties to finally address the longstanding issues at each of them,” Ryan Luby, an Aurora city spokesperson, said in an email to The Denver Gazette. “Tenants and various activists and advocates have called for more accountability, stability and certainty, and that is precisely what these actions will bring.”
The city attorney’s office — Luby said — will hold off on its criminal nuisance abatement actions against The Edge at Lowry properties in Aurora Municipal Court.
Initially, officials flat out rejected CBZ's CBZ Management's assertion that the Venezuelan gang was the cause of problems at these Aurora apartment complexes. A viral video of armed men terrorizing one of the complexes catapulted the gang and the city of Aurora into national headlines.
Former President Donald Trump, who is visiting Aurora this Friday, took the gang issue center stage during the first presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris last month.
“You see what's happening with towns throughout the United States,” Trump said. “You look at Springfield in Ohio. You look at Aurora in Colorado. They are taking over the towns. They are taking over buildings. They're going in violently. These are the people that she and Biden let into our country.”
Trump added, “They're dangerous. They're at the highest level of criminality, and we have to get them out.”
Following the debate, Trump vowed to undertake the “largest deportation” of undocumented immigrants in the country's history, beginning in Aurora and Springfield, where Trump claimed that immigrants were eating people's pets.
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