She wanted 50 apartments. He wanted 40 hotel rooms. Now the two struck a deal and started the clock. Lakewood-based Eaton Senior Communities will have until the end of the year to purchase the Barth Hotel on the corner of 17th and Blake, built in the 1880s and converted to housing a century later. I f the deal fails to close by Dec. 31, a hotelier next door will have his shot at bringing the Barth back to its previous use. The city landmark sits two blocks from Union Station at 1514 17th St. and has been vacant since being listed for sale in late 2024, when residents moved out because of its poor condition. Some rooms don’t have bathrooms; others are no bigger than a closet. The units are heated with radiators and none has air conditioning. “Senior Housing Options is the current owner, has been there for 45 years, and they clearly couldn’t keep up with the maintenance of the building,” said Sue Powers, a local developer who is working as a consultant for Eaton. “A year ago December, the elevator broke, and they found themselves carrying people in wheelchairs up a couple flights [of stairs].” Walter Isenberg, who owns the Oxford Hotel a block away, said his hotel has first right of refusal to purchase the Barth. Though he was interested in executing that right, Isenberg could not turn it back into a hotel because covenants on the property mandate that it be income-restricted housing for 55 more years. Isenberg, who owns several other downtown hotels including inside Union Station, had tried over the summer to have the covenant lifted. He wanted it placed on another property elsewhere in town so he could proceed with turning the 62-unit building into a 40-key hotel. But the city wouldn’t budge. “Our only option to gain control of the asset would have been to sue the city,” Isenberg said. “I’ve lived here 42 years. I love the city, and the thought of that was certainly not what we would have had as our first choice.” While that was ongoing, Eaton and Powers pursued the property to keep it as income-restricted housing for people age 62 and older and earning between 30% and 50% of the area median income. “We had a period of time after he exercised his right of first refusal, before we sat down together, where it was very contentious,” Powers said. “[Isenberg] felt strongly that he wanted to move ahead and we felt strongly we wanted to move ahead. There was tension.” Last month, Isenberg called Powers to see if a deal could be made. She is the president of local developer Urban Ventures, which developed Steam on the Platte, and served as director of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority from 1987 to 1998. “I said, ‘Listen, if you can’t pull this off, I don’t think anybody can.’ And we agreed that if she can’t, the worst possible outcome for everybody would be that the building sits vacant for a decade,” Isenberg said. Eaton – which operates two Lakewood apartment buildings – went under contract to purchase the 25,000-square-foot building for $2.5 million last week. The price tag for the whole project is $22 million, with construction costs hovering around $11.5 million, Powers said. On Tuesday, Eaton was awarded a 40-year, $6 million loan from the Downtown Development Authority at 2% interest, and on Friday it applied for federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits to finance the project. Powers said the nonprofit is seeking a bridge loan to close on the sale after it is awarded tax credits, which could be as early as this summer. The plan is to fix up the building and fashion 50 rooms out of the existing 62, with construction kicking off in the spring of 2027. The agreement between the nonprofit and Isenberg was facilitated by Denver City Council President Amanda Sandoval. Powers and Isenberg said the city, including the mayor’s office, supports the compromise. The agreement will be formalized as an amendment to a loan the current building owner has with the city, because that document is what stipulates the housing covenant. Related Articles SM Energy Co., Civitas Resources complete $12.1 billion merger Denver developer Brian Watson defrauded investors in 11 real estate deals, jury finds after SEC trial Coloradans carry heavy debt loads, and it isn’t financially healthy Buyers can drive a hard bargain on unsold late model cars Washington Park home lists for $9M “I’m talking to other council members now. So far, nobody has said that’s unreasonable,” Powers said. If Powers and Eaton can’t close the deal by year’s end, then the housing covenants on the Barth would be transferred to a property identified by Denver’s Department of Housing Stability. The contract to purchase the former hotel would be transferred from Eaton to Isenberg’s company, Sage Hospitality. “We have never been opposed to the use to be clear, when the Barth was there,” Isenberg said. “Presuming that Sue and Eaton pulled this off, we will continue to welcome them in, and we know they’ll be great neighbors.” Read more from our partner, BusinessDen. Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter. ...read more read less