The Source Hotel + Market Hall at 3330 Brighton Blvd. Mountain Cement Co.’s silos loom behind it. (Justin Wingerter/BusinessDen)
On a recent Monday morning, an 18-wheel tanker truck rumbled out from beneath four towering storage silos at the Mountain Cement Co.’s plant and made its way to Brighton Boulevard, trailing a line of dust that rode a cool breeze westward, toward The Source Hotel.
It is a common scene in RiNo, the city’s urban redevelopment success story that maintains semblances of its gritty industrial past — graffitied warehouses, smoke-billowing railcars, truck-worn side streets — even as its present features far more glitz than grit.
That symbiosis has been strained. Private investigators hired by one business have conducted predawn surveillance of another. Calls for government investigations have come from a company and its customer. A judge has agreed to intervene.
On Feb. 13, the owner of The Source sued Mountain Cement for $3.2 million, which is what it says it will cost to repair the damage from dust that has floated west and coated HVAC systems at the four-star hotel and food hall. During a hearing next week, it will ask a judge to put a stop to the dust before it prevents the business from having air conditioning.
“After 18 months of deceit and delay — acknowledging its cement dust was impacting the hotel, agreeing to pay for damages it caused, and telling The Source and agencies that emission controls at the facility either were fully operational or might soon be fully operational when they were not — (Mountain Cement) has gone silent,” last month’s lawsuit alleges.
Mountain Cement, its lawyers and its executives did not answer requests to discuss those claims and others by Stockdale Capital, which bought The Source from RiNo developer Kyle Zeppelin for $70 million in 2022. The plant opened in 1987; the hotel in 2018.
Their dispute began in August 2023, when an HVAC contractor inspected rooftop units at The Source and was surprised to find that filters it had only recently installed were entirely clogged with silica dust, which has been linked to lung cancer and other serious ailments.
When the hotel reported the incident to the City of Denver, it learned that a Source customer had already done so. An investigator with the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment reportedly wrote then, “I’ve found that Mountain Cement had been operating in violation of their air permit and I’m working on getting things cleaned up at their facility.”
In October 2023, Mountain Cement executives met with a project manager at The Source, admitted that their air filtration system had been out of service for months, said they would be hiring a manager to oversee emissions, and agreed to reimburse the hotel for HVAC repairs, according to last month’s lawsuit, which also claims that none of that has occurred.
A truck leaving Mountain Cement Co.’s plant in Denver on Monday, March 3, 2025. (Justin Wingerter/BusinessDen)
By December 2024, The Source had employed a private investigation firm to stake out the concrete plant’s entrance and record what it saw over the course of several days.
“These observations are shocking,” The Source’s lawsuit says of the video and air monitoring results it collected. “For 18 months or longer, the defendant has violated its air permit and emitted cement dust that has impacted and continues to impact the plaintiffs’ hotel.”
The Source alleges that its video surveillance showed Mountain Cement employees using leaf blowers to clean excess Portland cement off company trucks and send it towards the hotel. Other times, trucks left the plant with their hatches open, allowing dust to blow west.
“This damage is continuous and ongoing as the cement dust continues to settle on and coat the hotel’s surfaces and to solidify on the hotel’s HVAC systems,” its lawsuit alleges.
The Source is asking Denver District Court Judge Sarah Wallace to stop the plant from emitting more dust than it is legally allowed to. Time is of the essence, according to the hotel.
“HVAC equipment at the hotel is presently operating at a reduced functionality and cooling capacity. Unless Mountain Cement ceases emissions of cement dust…so that plaintiffs can replace the hotel’s HVAC equipment, the hotel will not be able to cool air within the Market Hall as required by its leases with tenants by the time warm weather arrives in April.”
So, a hearing downtown Monday morning could determine how the dust settles in RiNo.
The Source Hotel + Market Hall at 3330 Brighton Blvd. Mountain Cement Co.’s silos loom behind it. (Justin Wingerter/BusinessDen)
On a recent Monday morning, an 18-wheel tanker truck rumbled out from beneath four towering storage silos at the Mountain Cement Co.’s plant and made its way to Brighton Boulevard, trailing a line of dust that rode a cool breeze westward, toward The Source Hotel.
It is a common scene in RiNo, the city’s urban redevelopment success story that maintains semblances of its gritty industrial past — graffitied warehouses, smoke-billowing railcars, truck-worn side streets — even as its present features far more glitz than grit.
That symbiosis has been strained. Private investigators hired by one business have conducted predawn surveillance of another. Calls for government investigations have come from a company and its customer. A judge has agreed to intervene.
On Feb. 13, the owner of The Source sued Mountain Cement for $3.2 million, which is what it says it will cost to repair the damage from dust that has floated west and coated HVAC systems at the four-star hotel and food hall. During a hearing next week, it will ask a judge to put a stop to the dust before it prevents the business from having air conditioning.
“After 18 months of deceit and delay — acknowledging its cement dust was impacting the hotel, agreeing to pay for damages it caused, and telling The Source and agencies that emission controls at the facility either were fully operational or might soon be fully operational when they were not — (Mountain Cement) has gone silent,” last month’s lawsuit alleges.
Mountain Cement, its lawyers and its executives did not answer requests to discuss those claims and others by Stockdale Capital, which bought The Source from RiNo developer Kyle Zeppelin for $70 million in 2022. The plant opened in 1987; the hotel in 2018.
Their dispute began in August 2023, when an HVAC contractor inspected rooftop units at The Source and was surprised to find that filters it had only recently installed were entirely clogged with silica dust, which has been linked to lung cancer and other serious ailments.
When the hotel reported the incident to the City of Denver, it learned that a Source customer had already done so. An investigator with the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment reportedly wrote then, “I’ve found that Mountain Cement had been operating in violation of their air permit and I’m working on getting things cleaned up at their facility.”
In October 2023, Mountain Cement executives met with a project manager at The Source, admitted that their air filtration system had been out of service for months, said they would be hiring a manager to oversee emissions, and agreed to reimburse the hotel for HVAC repairs, according to last month’s lawsuit, which also claims that none of that has occurred.
A truck leaving Mountain Cement Co.’s plant in Denver on Monday, March 3, 2025. (Justin Wingerter/BusinessDen)
By December 2024, The Source had employed a private investigation firm to stake out the concrete plant’s entrance and record what it saw over the course of several days.
“These observations are shocking,” The Source’s lawsuit says of the video and air monitoring results it collected. “For 18 months or longer, the defendant has violated its air permit and emitted cement dust that has impacted and continues to impact the plaintiffs’ hotel.”
The Source alleges that its video surveillance showed Mountain Cement employees using leaf blowers to clean excess Portland cement off company trucks and send it towards the hotel. Other times, trucks left the plant with their hatches open, allowing dust to blow west.
“This damage is continuous and ongoing as the cement dust continues to settle on and coat the hotel’s surfaces and to solidify on the hotel’s HVAC systems,” its lawsuit alleges.
The Source is asking Denver District Court Judge Sarah Wallace to stop the plant from emitting more dust than it is legally allowed to. Time is of the essence, according to the hotel.
“HVAC equipment at the hotel is presently operating at a reduced functionality and cooling capacity. Unless Mountain Cement ceases emissions of cement dust…so that plaintiffs can replace the hotel’s HVAC equipment, the hotel will not be able to cool air within the Market Hall as required by its leases with tenants by the time warm weather arrives in April.”
So, a hearing downtown Monday morning could determine how the dust settles in RiNo.
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