Denver shuts down notorious landlord’s Uptown apartment building

William Penn Apartments at 1644 Pennsylvania St. in Denver on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

The city of Denver has shut down an Uptown apartment building owned by the region’s most notorious landlord.

The city’s Department of Public Health & Environment issued a public health order closing the 35-unit William Penn Apartments at 1644 Pennsylvania St. last week. The building is owned by CBZ Management, nationally known for its apartment buildings in Aurora that have seen gang activity.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday, Denver said the Uptown building has been racking up code violations for years and is “in need of emergency remedial care to bring the building into habitable condition for tenants.”

The city said it has some $280,000 in fines and liens against the property, plus an ongoing related criminal case. It asked Denver District Court Judge Andrew Luxen X to appoint a receiver to oversee the property, as has happened for two CBZ complexes in Aurora.

Luxen signed off on the request later that day, appointing David S. Cohen, a local attorney.

Attorneys for CBZ did not respond to a request for comment.

The Uptown building was purchased by 1644 Pennsylvania Partners LLC, an affiliate of New York-based CBZ, for $5.3 million in April 2019, records show.

At the time, CBZ was just one of many out-of-state building owners in Denver. But the company found itself in the national spotlight last year when it hired a public relations firm to announce that multiple apartment complexes it owned in Aurora had been “taken over” by members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Then-candidate Donald Trump seized upon the situation to travel to Aurora and tout his plan to take a more hardline approach to immigration.

Aurora officials pushed back against the gang claims, and emphasized they had been pressuring CBZ to address code violations at the complexes. In the months since, however, police have made multiple arrests of suspected gang members for crimes that reportedly took place at the properties. And a receiver appointed to oversee two of the properties lent credence to CBZ’s claims, writing last month that “rent collections remain challenging” at one property because residents said gang members were demanding rent be paid to them.

Denver’s Thursday court filing regarding the William Penn Apartments makes no mention of gangs. Instead, the city focuses on poor living conditions and CBZ’s alleged failure to address them.

According to the lawsuit, residents in the building began submitting complaints about habitability to Denver’s public health department starting in November 2022. Between January 2023 and this month, the department gave CBZ 58 notices of violations following inspections.

Those violations included rodent droppings in an apartment, water damage and mold, washing machines out of order, heat not working both in January 2024 and again this month, exterior doors lacking handles and the ability to lock, broken windows and feces in the stairwell, according to Denver. The violations led to administrative citations.

The Denver City Attorney’s Office — which authored the latest lawsuit — initiated a criminal case against the landlord over the property conditions in September, according to last week’s filing. A spokeswoman for the office declined to comment on that case.

In November 2024, Denver ordered 15 units closed due to their conditions, according to the lawsuit. But non-tenants have been breaking into some units and leaving behind drug paraphernalia, the city claims. Also in November, the property was added to Denver’s list of neglected and derelict properties.

Emily Williams, a spokeswoman for the public health department, said she’s unaware of any other property in the city with more city-initiated fines and liens than the William Penn Apartments.

“This is particularly egregious,” she said, noting most landlords respond to fines by addressing an issue.

It’s rare for the city to put a building into receivership. Such requests are typically made by a lender when a property owner defaults on a loan. That was the case for CBZ’s two Aurora properties in receivership.