Even though he knew the 7,500- square-foot brick apartment building on the corner of West 25th Avenue and Elliot Street needed work, investor Tim DePumpo was hooked the first time he saw it.
He quickly decided to buy the building in the Jefferson Park neighborhood, tenants and all, for about $70 per square foot. It was a steal of a deal in the Denver metro area, where the average price for residential housing is about $220 per square foot.
DePumpo repaired a damaged and blackened corner window and painted over graffiti in an interior hallway in the building, which houses seven apartments and two retail spaces. Then he fixed the gutters, refinished floors and knocked out walls before moving into an expanded upstairs corner unit.
That was a little over two years ago. Since then, DePumpo has gotten married and made friends with neighbors like Barbara Baker, who buys and sells properties in the neighborhood, and developer David Zucker, who recently finished building the Zocalo project, 42 condominiums at West 22nd Avenue and Decatur Street.
“It was a financial deal for me initially as a bachelor,” DePumpo said. “But we like the fact that (the neighborhood) is coming along, and that we’re helping to bring it along.”
Founded in the 1860s on a bluff overlooking Denver, Jefferson Park originally was part of the town of Highland. Once Denver annexed Highland, this neighborhood took the name of its best-known feature, a 6.7-acre park built on the site of a landfill.
The west Denver neighborhood is now on the cusp of change, with its location – just west of Interstate 25 but connected to downtown via West 23rd Avenue – perhaps its most valuable asset. With Invesco Field to the south, and the gentrified Highland neighborhood to the north, Jefferson Park also contains an attractive stock of diverse, affordable housing.
Stately 19th-century Victorians are nestled between cottages built between the early 1900s and the 1950s. As interest in downtown real estate grows, so does new construction in the form of condos, apartments and single- family homes.
A strong neighborhood group is lobbying for the kind of development that will preserve rather than replace the character of this working-class neighborhood. It also has worked to lower the crime rate with aggressive anti-crime activity. Baker calls the police when she sees prostitutes or drug deals in the streets, and DePumpo got a streetside pay phone moved from beneath his window to a corner where he can see – and report – any kind of illicit activity it is involved in.
Jefferson Park’s crime rate now ranks 14th among the city’s 40 neighborhoods, down from 5th six years ago, Baker said. Without the vandalism and car break-ins that occur at Invesco Field, the Denver Aquarium and the Children’s Museum, police say, the residential portions of the neighborhood would rank about 20th.
“The more we have Neighborhood Watch, the more things are diminishing,” Baker said.
“When we started getting involved in the neighborhood, there were literally 10 people at the neighborhood meetings,” Zucker said. “Now there are 60, 70 or 80 people. That’s a huge determining factor in a neighborhood that’s on the move.”
The group persuaded Invesco Field to clean up after football games, with stadium management now spending $40,000 on traffic mitigation and cleanup per year, Zucker said. It also created a neighborhood plan that spells out how new development should occur, and where.
One location on its radar: a three- to six-story, 357-unit rental development that is planned to replace the Baby Doe’s and Chili Pepper restaurants, which overlook I-25.
Just like Lower Downtown in the late 1990s or the Ballpark neighborhood five years ago, Jefferson Park is poised for real estate gains, Zucker said. Units at Zocalo now fetch $275 per square foot, while Victorians that need some remodeling range from the $100,000s to the $300,000s.
“There’s not a closer neighborhood more affordably priced anywhere in central Denver,” Zucker said.
The neighborhood now feels better than it has in a long time, said Ray Vasquez, who has lived across from the park since 1980. “I’m for change,” he said. “I’m for improvement, and I’m not going to stop anybody who wants to get the economy running.”
DePumpo envisions a place where the street vendors will still sell cooked corn ears from carts, but taggers will stop defacing property.
“We don’t want to be Cherry Creek North. We don’t want to see it yuppified, but we want a safe neighborhood,” DePumpo said. “I think we all genuinely want a new-world type of gentrification.”
JEFFERSON PARK
Where it is: Bounded by Federal Boulevard to the west, Speer Boulevard to the north, Interstate 25 to the east and Invesco Field/West 19th Avenue to the south.
Who lives here: A mix of young families and longtime residents; a large ratio of renters to owners in a mix of homes from the early 1900s through new construction.
Price per square foot: $150 in 2002; up to $275 in 2005, depending on the block and the development.
Main attractions: Proximity to downtown; active neighborhood group; longtime residents; great views of downtown and the mountains; historic Victorian homes; business-friendly enterprise zone.
Common complaints: High rates of graffiti and car break-ins at Invesco Field, Children’s Museum and the Denver Aquarium parking lots; old-timers and newcomers don’t always agree on growth plans.
Schools: Denver Public Schools Valdez Elementary, Skinner and Lake middle schools, North High School
Shopping: Restaurants and shops on nearby Federal Boulevard, including Jack ‘n’ Grill and a plethora of neighborhood Mexican cafes.
Amenities: Jefferson Park, Invesco Field, Children’s Museum of Denver, Downtown Aquarium. Just outside the neighborhood, Highland Senior Center and Ashland Recreation Center, which has an indoor pool.
Sources: Residents, Denver Census Bureau statistics, Denver Post research
