After a shopping spree for real estate around Burnham Yard, where a new stadium is planned, the Denver Broncos have landlord-tenant issues.
“I don’t like billion-dollar companies taking advantage of middle-class people. I’m paycheck to paycheck,” said Alec Henkelman.
The Army combat veteran owns High Country Armory at 785 Vallejo St., a building the Broncos bought in January. His business is being told to pay 20% more per month to the new landlord, according to JLL, which has stepped in as property manager.
“The way I understand it is, the Broncos bought it, and the people they put in charge are doing this,” Henkelman said.
Henkelman’s lease expires at the end of the year. His monthly base rent is just under $2,600, and he had been paying about $1,000 in additional expenses. The “triple-net” lease he signed with the previous owner, which is common for commercial space, stipulates that he’s responsible for paying 20% of the building’s taxes, insurance and maintenance.
Now, Henkelman is being asked to pay an additional $700 for those items. That adds up to an extra $8,000 over the year, which he refuses to pay.
“I try not to cut hours, cut employees. I want to take care of my guys. But thatap what that could mean. Thatap one dude’s weekly salary,” Henkelman said.
“If itap the Broncos and we’re talking about eight grand on the year, why don’t we just ask Bo Nix to take an $8,000 cut?”
In a phone call that Henkelman had with JLL, which he shared with BusinessDen, the property manager explained that the increase came as a result of a new building maintenance budget it created. The JLL staffer also reiterated that it was building expenses, not base rent, that was increasing.
Henkelman said it felt like “bad business.”
“This feels like you’re manipulating the lease, and you’re taking advantage of three tenants in your building, increasing their overall rent pay by 20%,” he said.
Henkelman told BusinessDen that he had a verbal agreement with the previous landlord that his triple-net payments wouldn’t change over the duration of his lease.
JLL did not respond to a request for comment. The Broncos, who have yet to directly acknowledge any real estate transactions in the area, did the same with this property.
“We are unable to confirm any of the real estate activity associated with this LLC,” Broncos spokesman Patrick Smyth said via email.
SNCC LLC purchased the 10,800-square-foot building on 0.4 acres at 781-785 Vallejo St. for $2.2 million. Details of the transaction match others the team has recently completed nearby, like paying for the property in cash, using a lawyer associated with its other deals and forming the nondescript buying entity in late 2023.
“We’re under the impression [that it was the Broncos], but we can’t confirm that,” Kaufman Hagan broker Zachary Bierman, who represented the seller in the deal, told BusinessDen in January.
At a BusinessDen event in March, Broncos General Counsel Tim Aragon acknowledged that the team was buying property along Eighth Avenue, where Henkelman’s shop is located.
Aragon said those deals are due to the road being “the front door” to the stadium district.
“Some of the things that existed in those properties might not be things that we wanted,” he said, referencing a marijuana grow house across the street from the gun store.
Henkelman, meanwhile, says he plans to buy a building elsewhere.
“I’m trying to buy a building and get the f– out,” he said.
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