‘The end of the line is with me’: Family sells East Colfax property after a century

Mark Lampert has never lived without - E Colfax Ave in the family The -year-old and a few family members his siblings cousins and their mothers sold the -square-foot retail property last month for million or per square foot Tenants include Lion s Lair one of Denver s oldest dive bars and a venue for punk and indie rock Mark Lampert s great-great uncle Max Schiff bought the property in when a building boom was shifting Colfax from residential to commercial There s a major transformation now as well as crews install a bus rapid transit line down the middle of the corridor We could have held on longer until the BRT was done and likely sold it for more Mark Lampert noted But you know frankly all of us talked and we thought let the next person the next generation take it and run with it to another high level The building holds four retail spaces Besides Lion s Lair there s a liquor store tattoo parlor and marijuana dispensary While their lease agreements say a new building owner can force the businesses to move Mark Lampert announced he wished to sell the property to someone who would keep them there That s why he stated he accepted less than the property s list price There s a close feeling with the tenants that are in there now Mark Lampert disclosed The buyer Commerce City resident Joginder Singh initially reached out wanting to get the liquor store lease extended so he could buy it Mark Lampert saw an opportunity and offered to instead sell him the building which had been on the industry for a sparse weeks At a time when people are stepping away from East Colfax he was in an opposite boat commented Unique Properties broker Hudson Cramer who represented the family alongside colleagues Michael DeSantis and Brett MacDougall Financing was challenging because of the dispensary and marijuana s illegal status on a federal level So the sellers stepped up and lent Singh million at interest And Mark Lampert s run with the building isn t wholly over He will still manage the property through another family company Ann Lampert Realty Inc which his grandmother started in the s He explained she was one of the first women in Colorado to get licensed as a real estate agent My grandmother would reliably say any husband would not buy a house without showing his wife a kitchen he mentioned The property management firm oversees about doors between Denver and Aurora Mark Lampert a George Washington High School graduate spent his early career building apartments around the metro area with his father There s a subdivision in Denver s Mar Lee neighborhood named after the family The family s real estate gene though will go extinct with him The end of the line is with me unfortunately Mark Lampert explained Unfortunately I burned my kids out at an early age he quipped I brought them to the office so several times that I had a little alcove in my office so they would play salesperson and buyer Now in the twilight of his career Mark Lampert insists he s not sentimental about - E Colfax Still during the class of an interview he noted that he saw Mary Poppins for the first time six decades ago next door where the Aladdin Theater once stood And he recalled his Aunt Cissy was proud to own the real estate for a liquor store tattoo parlor and bar She d visit her tenants often and Sugar Bear the risque leather-and-lace tattoo shop artist would reliably want to ink her It was emblematic of Colfax at the time a seedy underbelly of Denver dotted with motels that Mark Lampert mentioned were rented by the hour Related Articles Colfax construction takes out year-old pastry shop Renovated mid-century motel will have a bar and coffee shop on East Colfax Aurora police searching for leads in fatal house party shooting Fatal stabbings of homeless men are connected Aurora police say East Colfax restaurants say they are barely hanging on because of BRT line construction But Colfax is a different place now Residential is returning to the street in the form of large apartment buildings More could be in store when the behemoth BRT infrastructure project is completed This is almost as laborious right now for a lot of the retail establishments along Colfax as it was during COVID he commented of BRT construction Still Mark Lampert who has spent his entire professional career in real estate understands that these things happen in cycles I ve seen Colfax go from a very nice place to a very rough place coming back out to a very nice place again he reported Read more from our partner BusinessDen