Chicago developer working through LoHi project after wrapping up on Tennyson

The LoHi development involves renovating and adding onto this nearly 135-year-old apartment building along Zuni Street. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)

Frank Campise likes a challenge.

The Chicago developer began investing in the Mile High City five years ago. He recently completed a new mixed-use apartment building on red-hot Tennyson Street in Denver’s Berkeley neighborhood. 

And now, he finds himself immersed in a redevelopment of a 130-year-old apartment building at 2935 Zuni St. in LoHi.

“The building was in awful disrepair,” Campise, 56, said.

“We had to do everything. It’s all new mechanicals, we had to repair the decorative cornice on the property, we had to repair some structural components of the building. I think it was fair to say it’s a full-gut renovation.”

The project, which includes building about 20 new apartments on the parking lot of the nearly half-acre property, will cost the developer “north of $10 million,” he said. That includes the $5.5 million Campise spent acquiring the building in March 2022.

“The building was in such disrepair that you needed the additional density to offset the repairs,” he said.

Campise expects to wrap up the project by late summer or early fall this year. The building will hold 38 apartments and some small ground-floor retail space. Built in 1892 for $50,000 and designed by an Austrian architect, it’s known as the Ochiltree building. The property was home to a gay bathhouse for decades, but that closed in the run-up to Campise buying the building. 

The three-story building is part of Denver’s Scottish Village within the Highlands, a triangular area stretching roughly from 29th to 32nd Avenue along Zuni Street and its side roads to the west, according to federal government records. It was originally designed to be an “elite suburb” with big lots and an irregular street pattern. 

The area was laid out over 150 years ago to mimic the Chicago suburb of Riverside, just a few miles from where Campise runs his business, JAB Real Estate. 

The site on Dec. 4, 2024. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)

JAB owns about 600 apartments in Denver across a dozen or so properties, from Wash Park to Cap Hill and LoHi to Berkeley.

At the end of last year, he completed a 44-unit apartment building at the corner of 38th Avenue and Tennyson Street. Rents start around $2,000 a month. He and his daughter developed a program, called Aigentless, which allows prospective tenants to tour the buildings on their own. Campise said this helps him cut costs and increase his conversion rate. 

Campise said Tennyson is unique within Denver, because its retail core extends for six blocks.

Frank Campise

“You think of Chicago, New York, there are tons of streets like Tennyson. … South Gaylord is a block and a half long, South Pearl is two blocks long, and they’re not getting the rents you could achieve on Tennyson,” Campise said.

The developer came to Denver “looking for growth,” and believed it to be more insulated from the oversupply of apartments than Phoenix or Austin. He saw promise in its population and job growth and the natural amenity that the Rockies provide, as Lake Michigan does for Chicago, he said.

“It turns out that Denver has horrible oversupply,” Campise said.

But the Chicagoan is continuing to buy in the Mile High City anyway. He completed five deals last year, has a property under contract so far in 2025 and expects to close on a few more. 

“Our thesis is … buy well-located assets at the right basis, and you’ll be fine,” Campise said. “We never went into RiNo because that made me nervous. But if you think of the Tennyson corridor, that is a supply corridor.” 

Campsie has been with JAB, which he co-owns with Jim Jann, since 2007. He bought his first building, a duplex in Chicago, at age 22 with a cash advance loan on a credit card and an unsecured line of credit. Back then, he was a CPA by day and waiting tables by night.

“The reality is you can’t focus on the undulations of the market, you have to focus on the trajectory,” Campise said. 

“And I love the trajectory of Denver.”