Council approves government funding to transform Evans School into ‘one building Main Street’

The Evans School building at 1115 Acoma St. in Denver, in late 2020. (BusinessDen file)

The Denver City Council approved a plan Monday night that will allow the Evans School to open its doors permanently for the first time in half a century.

“It’s going to be a very vibrant, active place. We see this building as a unique place to be the heart of the Golden Triangle,” Joe Vostrejs told BusinessDen on Tuesday.

The ornate red-brick school at 1115 N. Acoma St. closed in 1974 and has been largely vacant ever since. Vostrejs, co-founder of Denver firm City Street Investors, bought the 34,000-square-foot building in 2019 for $11 million with another local investor, Columbia Group.

Joe Vostrejs

The duo will receive $3 million in tax increment financing to renovate the city landmark into a mixed-use development with retail and restaurant tenants, art studios, and event and office space.

Vostrejs told council members Monday that he has spoken to about 200 people in the neighborhood over the past five years to hear what they want to see in the building. They generally want it to remain open to the public, rather than, say, leased to a handful of office tenants.

“Almost the entire site will be open to the community,” he told councillors.

Vostrejs told BusinessDen that’s the main reason he pursued the Denver Urban Renewal Authority (DURA) deal.

“The programming that the public said they wanted for the building is so expensive and infrastructure intensive that the numbers just didn’t add up,” Vostrejs said. “If we just did a nice remodel of the building and turned it into an office building, there would be no need for tax increment financing.”

The financing works by returning a portion of the sales tax generated on the property to the developer, along with reimbursing the property tax increase that the new upgrades will bring. Those revenues will total $3.3 million, according to DURA. The tax breaks represent about 13 percent of the project’s $26 million price tag.

“It’s not just a blank check for money,” Vostrejs said. “It’s for permanent improvements to the building.”

The building, which was built in 1904 as an elementary school, is three stories high and sits on 2 acres. City Street plans to install two of its own retail concepts on the ground floor: a 4,000-square-foot restaurant and beer garden and a 1,000-square-foot coffee and ice cream parlor. At least four other retail spaces will be leased to other operators. City Street already operates beer gardens in Green Valley Ranch, Lowry and Edgewater, with more on the way.

On the lawn of approximately 830 square meters that surrounds most of the building, there will be a terrace of 275 square meters.

The back of the school building. (BusinessDen file)

At one point, Vostrejs considered turning the upper floors into a hotelbut said Tuesday that didn’t make economic sense. The area contains about 15 classrooms, each 1,000 square feet, that could be divided or combined if needed.

The second floor will become more of a “maker” and “wellness” area, with art studios and other spaces for artisans. Some will be free or heavily discounted for at least several years, under an agreement with the city, Vostrejs said. The entire floor will be connected by the existing 5,500-square-foot auditorium, which will host community and private events.

The third floor will be office space. Vostrejs is looking for “creative” users, such as architects and graphic designers, he said.

The public funding was approved Monday in a 10-1 vote, with Councilmember Shontel Lewis voting against it, saying her biggest concern was how long the discounted art spaces would remain affordable.

With the approval in hand, Vostrejs said he expects to begin work on site in the fall, with hopes of opening the building to the public in the spring. But he still has a lot of work to do.

The building’s ornate staircases are missing handrails, its windows need to be upgraded, its HVAC system needs to be overhauled, and its roof needs to be removed and reinstalled to add insulation and remove lead paint. That doesn’t include making the building more accessible and ADA-compliant, which will cost $800,000.

Those costs, along with the $2.1 million needed for structure and facade repairs, the $300,000 for environmental remediation and the $100,000 needed for life-protection repairs and installations, total $3.3 million — expected to be recouped through tax increment financing.

“(It will be) a one-building Main Street for the community,” Vostrejs said. “The building is really remarkable because it has such exceptional and expansive outdoor spaces, which a lot of buildings like this don’t have.”