By Benjamin Neufeld

 

After a lease agreement based on allegedly misrepresented terms, cost a Colorado nonprofit thousands of dollars, their lawsuit against partnered development organizations, Westside Investment Partners and the Holleran Group, is about more than simply recovering a financial loss. “We obviously want our resources and money back,” Adrienna Corrales Luján, the executive director of Sisters of Color, a Denver based promotora (community health worker) program. However, more than that, they want to raise awareness and prevent the developers from taking advantage of the Denver community the same way the developers took advantage of them.

 

“With the developers asking the voters of Denver to let them develop the Park Hill Golf Course, Sisters of Color feels obligated to inform our community about its experience with Westside and the Holleran Group and the negative consequences from believing in their promises,” the organization said in a press release.

 

 

Sisters of Color had been leasing space in the clubhouse of the controversial Park Hill Golf Course from Westside and Holleran. Westside had purchased the defunct golf course from the Clayton Foundation in 2019 with plans to eventually develop the land pending the removal of a city-owned conservation easement that, according to the language of the easement, “provides for the conservation of the Golf Course Land as open space and for the continued existence and operation of a regulation-length 18-hole daily fee public golf course.” Holleran joined Westside as a codeveloper in 2020.

 

In 2021, Denver voters passed Ballot Initiative 301 which requires city-wide voter approval to lift a conservation easement and allow for other land uses not related to that easement. During the same election, voters rejected Ballot Initiative 302 which would redefine “conservation easement” in order to exempt the Park Hill Golf Course from the provisions set forth by Ordinance 301. This April, Denver voters will decide whether to lift the Park Hill Golf Course easement and allow Westside/Holleran to develop the land. In the meantime, following a series of public comment sessions, the city has developed an area plan intended to guide the development of the land if voters decide to lift the easement.

 

Westside and Holleran present themselves as willing and active partners of the Park Hill Community. The City of Denver, under the Hancock administration, agrees and echoes this presentation. According to denvergov.org, Westside, “prioritizes a development process that lifts up communities and celebrates their histories,” and Holleran, “is a collaborative partnership of African American real estate developers, brokers, community outreach specialists and event and project managers…[that believe] in creating equitable opportunities.”

 

 

As an organization interested in non-traditional, equity-based methods of development and community building, Sisters of Color was excited to work with supposedly like-minded developers to help uplift the Park Hill and greater Denver community. Sisters of Color had also previously worked with Tyrone Hubbard, who later joined Holleran, according to Luján. And, they had worked with organizations affiliated with Westside to financially sponsor some events related to raising support for Ballot Initiative 302, when they had still supported the golf course development plan.

 

On top of that, Sisters of Color was planning on eventually moving their organization into a much larger space on the Loretto Heights campus, which is also owned by Westside. Their lease was up for a space they were using on 8th Ave. and Santa Fe Dr. when the golf course clubhouse became available. The clubhouse—which was larger than their current space, and which they knew they could only use temporarily—made  sense to use as a transitional space as they built out their organization in order to later occupy the much larger Loretto Heights space. “The vision was that we would basically create…the infrastructure over two to three years at Park Hill that would allow us to grow into that much larger space in Loretto Heights,” said Luján.

 

“With the developers asking the voters of Denver to let them develop the Park Hill Golf Course, Sisters of Color feels obligated to inform our community about its experience with Westside and the Holleran Group and the negative consequences from believing in their promises.”
Sisters of Color

 

The clubhouse, which had not been used for a few years, needed significant renovation in order to be usable. “It was really gross,” said Luján.

 

Through Hubbard, Sisters of Color agreed to front the cost of that renovation in the form of advance rent payments. According to the lawsuit, “Holleran promised to modify the Clubhouse lease to reflect the fact that Sisters of Color had made advanced rent payments.” They agreed to “basically fix the space up in lieu of rent,” according to Luján.

 

Because they needed to move into a space quickly, because they had previously established a positive relationship with Hubbard (who acted on behalf of Holleran), and because Westside and Holleran represented themselves as equity-focused community partners, Sisters of Color felt comfortable moving forward with the transaction without establishing a clear agreement on how the lease terms would later be amended.

 

As contractors completed the renovations, Sisters of Color became increasingly excited about the potential for the space. “Over a few months we really cleaned it up, and made sure that the community was going to have a safe and clean, beautiful space in the way of a community center,” said Luján.

 

Sisters of Color paid Holleran nearly $150,000 for improvements to the clubhouse, more than they would have otherwise paid in rent over the three years they planned to use the building. Then, Westside and Holleran went back on their promise to factor that cost into the rent.

 

Rather than update the lease to reflect Sisters of Color’s outsized financial contribution, Holleran and Westside demanded modifications which would give the developers the “exclusive right to use each of the rooms in the Sisters of Color’s space for fifteen percent of each

 

room’s potential total hours of use per week,” according to the lawsuit Sisters of Color later filed. They also required Sisters of Color to share a significant portion of the space with an additional tenant: a church called The House Worship Center.

 

Their lawsuit also alleges that, “Holleran’s invoices lacked backup documentation to verify the amounts claimed and, upon information and belief, Holleran overbilled Sisters of Color for the work performed, and/or charged Sisters of Color for work that was not done including, inter alia, charging a 10% ‘project management’ fee, while separately charging for ‘management labor’ and included duplicative billing.”

 

Sisters of Color spent months trying to get an updated lease that would reflect the cost of renovations without their overbearing additional requests. “They wouldn’t provide it for us,” said Luján, which eventually led to the lawsuit.

 

After some negotiating the developers offered to settle and pay Sisters of Color $173,000 in exchange for the release of all claims. However, according to the agreement, the developers would be permitted to claim the settlement as a charitable donation–which, in addition to being tax deductible, would assist in developing their image as being true community-partners as they try to convince voters to lift the conservation easement in April.

 

Bringing awareness to the insincerity of that image is the priority of the lawsuit, which is why the settlement offer, though it would have made up for financial damages, was not acceptable. “I believe sophistry is really what allows these systemic challenges to keep occurring,” said Luján. This pattern of dishonesty on behalf of developers intending, solely, to extract financial gain out of communities, often at the detriment of those communities, “isn’t anything different than what has been happening in Denver.” Luján related the practice back to a “systemic and historical trauma of Indigenous land being taken from communities.” She also noted the symbolic significance of how Westside/Holleran treated a much smaller, woman of color led community organization.

 

In their campaign to pass ballot initiative 302, Westside and Holleran had used the slogan, “protect local choices and local voices,” implying that allowing the city as a whole to vote on the fate of the Park Hill Golf Course was a form of denying the will of the people of the Park Hill Neighborhood. A blog post on Holleran’s website (their only blog post) from late October, 2021 says, “Ballot initiative 302 is a direct response to a measure filed by SOS Denver to take away the voice of an entire neighborhood that has been systematically disenfranchised for more than 50 years. This confusing and purposely misleading initiative claims to be in support of open space, but it’s a direct attempt to stop the community visioning process at the Park Hill Golf Course.”

 

Luján and Sisters of Color had initially been optimistic about this visioning process. After their direct experience working with Westside and Holleran, this is no longer the case. “I just think it had so much more potential, but it is what it is,” Luján said.

 

Now, Sisters of Color wants to warn the rest of the community not to trust community-partnership messaging coming from the developers. “We just want to let people know that this is a predatory practice of development,” said Luján. “If they’re willing to do that to a well-established organization, what do you think is the potential of the community actually getting a fair voice in this process?”

 

As of January 23, City Council has advanced an Area plan for the Park Hill Golf Course and “voted to approve a regulatory package that will create legally binding requirements for the Park Hill Golf Course property.” This plan and agreement will go into effect if the vote on lifting the conservation easement passes during the April 4 municipal election.

The lawsuit against Westside and Holleran is set to play out this Spring. Neither Holleran nor Westside responded to The Weekly Issue/El Semanario’s request for comment on this story in time for publication.

 

Benjamin Neufeld is an Independent Reporter for The Weekly Issue/El Semanario.