The largest of the five buildings that GM Development bought in 2022 is 489,000 square feet. (BusinessDen file)
The new owner of the former Veterans Affairs hospital campus in Denver is looking to repurpose its largest structure for largely residential use.
Sam Edelson, an executive with Denver-based GM Development, said the firm believes it can fashion approximately 490 apartments out of the building.
Sam Edelson
“There will also be some commercial space on the garden level, which can be retail or office,” Edelson told BusinessDen in an email. “We think it will be particularly well suited for some medical office given the adjacency to Rose (Medical Center).”
GM, which has done smaller adaptive reuse projects around Denver, paid $41.3 million in September 2022 for 8.2 acres at 1055 Clermont St., which included five buildings and a parking structure.
The largest structure, what used to be the main hospital building, is 489,000 square feet and tops out at about 10 stories. Combined, the structures are 775,718 square feet, counting the eight-floor parking garage.
In late 2022, GM indicated in filings submitted to the city that it was considering two primary options for redeveloping the property. One option was demolishing everything but the parking garage. The second was keeping both the parking garage and the main hospital building along 9th Avenue.
GM is now looking to move forward with the latter option.
“The goal here is to redevelop the adaptive reuse portion of the hospital as quickly as possible, both from a safety perspective and from delivering housing perspective,” Edelson said at a meeting of Denver’s Planning Board earlier this month.
The former VA hospital, seen here in November 2023, was replaced by a new facility in Aurora in 2018. (BusinessDen file)
GM went before the Planning Board in its bid to rezone about half the site. The firm is seeking C-MX-12 zoning for 4.19 acres to the west and north of the main building, where new structures would be built. That zoning generally allows mixed-use buildings up to 12 stories.
The Planning Board unanimously voted to forward the rezoning request. It was heard by a City Council committee on Tuesday. A final vote on the rezoning is expected in July.
“I think the community is really excited to see that the owners will be keeping the main structure,” Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer, who represents the area, said at the Tuesday meeting.
Sawyer said the building “looks like a house of horrors” inside.
“There are literal CPR dummies sitting on the ground still,” she said.
GM has faced challenges keeping people out of the vacant buildings. Last year, the firm installed an electric fence around them.
That didn’t solve the problem. In late December, a resident of a neighboring apartment complex emailed GM executive Ben Gearhart, saying the VA building was “a Hilton for the homeless” and the company’s efforts to keep people out “have not been effective,” according to rezoning documents. Gearhart responded that the company was looking at changing its security provider and later said the electric fence was a “fool’s errand.”
Edelson told BusinessDen that the company has implemented changes in the five months since the email exchange.
“We think we’ve made a lot of progress on this front having retained a new guard service, whose results we see daily through reports,” Edelson said. “We have also opened the site up to Denver Fire, who is using it to train, helping keep the site more active during the day.”
The former VA buildings are the second medical campus in the immediate area to be redeveloped. Down the street used to be the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Denver-based Continuum Partners and Los Angeles-based CIM Group purchased that 26-acre site and have built a mix of retail, office and residential space.
The largest of the five buildings that GM Development bought in 2022 is 489,000 square feet. (BusinessDen file)
The new owner of the former Veterans Affairs hospital campus in Denver is looking to repurpose its largest structure for largely residential use.
Sam Edelson, an executive with Denver-based GM Development, said the firm believes it can fashion approximately 490 apartments out of the building.
Sam Edelson
“There will also be some commercial space on the garden level, which can be retail or office,” Edelson told BusinessDen in an email. “We think it will be particularly well suited for some medical office given the adjacency to Rose (Medical Center).”
GM, which has done smaller adaptive reuse projects around Denver, paid $41.3 million in September 2022 for 8.2 acres at 1055 Clermont St., which included five buildings and a parking structure.
The largest structure, what used to be the main hospital building, is 489,000 square feet and tops out at about 10 stories. Combined, the structures are 775,718 square feet, counting the eight-floor parking garage.
In late 2022, GM indicated in filings submitted to the city that it was considering two primary options for redeveloping the property. One option was demolishing everything but the parking garage. The second was keeping both the parking garage and the main hospital building along 9th Avenue.
GM is now looking to move forward with the latter option.
“The goal here is to redevelop the adaptive reuse portion of the hospital as quickly as possible, both from a safety perspective and from delivering housing perspective,” Edelson said at a meeting of Denver’s Planning Board earlier this month.
The former VA hospital, seen here in November 2023, was replaced by a new facility in Aurora in 2018. (BusinessDen file)
GM went before the Planning Board in its bid to rezone about half the site. The firm is seeking C-MX-12 zoning for 4.19 acres to the west and north of the main building, where new structures would be built. That zoning generally allows mixed-use buildings up to 12 stories.
The Planning Board unanimously voted to forward the rezoning request. It was heard by a City Council committee on Tuesday. A final vote on the rezoning is expected in July.
“I think the community is really excited to see that the owners will be keeping the main structure,” Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer, who represents the area, said at the Tuesday meeting.
Sawyer said the building “looks like a house of horrors” inside.
“There are literal CPR dummies sitting on the ground still,” she said.
GM has faced challenges keeping people out of the vacant buildings. Last year, the firm installed an electric fence around them.
That didn’t solve the problem. In late December, a resident of a neighboring apartment complex emailed GM executive Ben Gearhart, saying the VA building was “a Hilton for the homeless” and the company’s efforts to keep people out “have not been effective,” according to rezoning documents. Gearhart responded that the company was looking at changing its security provider and later said the electric fence was a “fool’s errand.”
Edelson told BusinessDen that the company has implemented changes in the five months since the email exchange.
“We think we’ve made a lot of progress on this front having retained a new guard service, whose results we see daily through reports,” Edelson said. “We have also opened the site up to Denver Fire, who is using it to train, helping keep the site more active during the day.”
The former VA buildings are the second medical campus in the immediate area to be redeveloped. Down the street used to be the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Denver-based Continuum Partners and Los Angeles-based CIM Group purchased that 26-acre site and have built a mix of retail, office and residential space.
