Matt Van Sistine is entering the next inning of his Ballpark redevelopment project.
The 51-year-old real estate investor wants to carve hotel rooms, an entertainment venue and a cafe out of the nearly 120-year-old building at 2100 Larimer St. in Denver. He also envisions building a third story.
“I want to activate every square inch of this building,” he said. “It hasn’t been fully active since 2000.”
Van Sistine purchased the property in April 2025 from Kenneth Monfort of Monfort Cos. and Dan Huml of Magnetic Capital for $1.5 million. He said conversations began after part of the building’s roof fell off onto the street below in February 2024.
The building was placed on Denver’s Neglected and Derelict list later that year.
“She’s a fixer-upper,” he said.
When Van Sistine bought the building, it came with approved plans for a piano bar on the ground level, office space on the second floor, and a to-be-constructed third floor with more offices. But seeing how office valuations have cratered nationally and locally, the Denverite has taken a different tack.
“I didn’t really get any value out of the plans,” he said.
Van Sistine expects to submit his own plans to the city later this week.
First, there’s the ground level. It was last occupied by bar and burrito joint El Charrito, which closed in 2018 after 56 years. Van Sistine wants to turn its old digs into an entertainment venue, but not something that would compete with the neighborhood’s robust nightlife.
“I think it’s less of a nightclub and more of a community venue,” he said.
The venue would span two-thirds of the ground floor and all of the basement. Much of the lower level would be dedicated to back-of-house operations, but his plans call for a tiny speakeasy in the building’s old boiler room.
Van Sistine plans to dig out 4 feet of dirt beneath the basement and lay down a new foundation. The basement, he quipped, was previously home to the “Modelo man.” He pulled out three trash bags of beer cans from there when he bought the property.
The 2100 Larimer building opened in 1908. As the Western Hotel Denver, it once had 42 small pay-by-the-hour rooms.
Van Sistine plans to resurrect the name, but feature 15 modern units for those looking to stay in Ballpark. The hotel would span the entire second floor. Its lobby would go into the remaining 2,250 square feet of ground-floor space, which would also include a small cafe/bar with a patio wrapping around the corner of 21st and Larimer.
Even though the entire layout will be brand new, the finishes and fixtures inside will remind visitors of what it once was.
“I don’t think we lean into our Western heritage enough,” Van Sistine said.
The planned third story would either be more hotel rooms and lounge space or a rooftop bar or restaurant.
Van Sistine said he’d ideally like to have one operating partner run the entire building. But he’s open to splitting it up into different leases or running some parts himself.
“If one of these Michelin-star chefs wants to have a concept and it makes sense to have that separate thing — that could be its own separate thing,” he said.
Van Sistine has hired fellow Ballpark resident Patrick McMichael of Track Architecture.
He has one financial partner in the project — Blair Gifford, a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado Denver’s business school. The two met in rural Kenya. Gifford has a nonprofit organization supporting development in the African country, and Van Sistine volunteers for a similar entity.
Van Sistine, a Wisconsin native, has lived in the neighborhood since 2008. His younger brother, Jon Van Sistine, is also active in the neighborhood real estate scene. He purchased an 8-year-old office building at 1010 Park Ave. last year to convert it into a hotel.
“He likes new things, I like old things,” the elder Van Sistine said.
