“It was really more profitable and more valuable as raw land,” he said.

The Aspen resident and hospitality investor sold the former American Motel property for $16.5 million last week. The deal came after he rezoned it and knocked down the longstanding spot off Interstate 70, known for its large, red sign displaying rooms at $32.95.

The buyer, Dallas-based Trinsic Residential Group, is planning 335 apartments on the 5.8-acre site at 10101 W. I-70 Frontage Road North.

Sherman bought the site and prepared it for a future buyer who could do something bigger and better with it. Before Trinsic went under contract, Sherman was in talks with another group to buy the property, just off I-70’s Kipling Street exit.

“I didn’t think there was much risk,” he said. “The city was very supportive of the rezoning and the city of Wheat Ridge was really, really great to work with throughout, and it sailed through the rezoning process.”

Besides assisting with the rezoning, Wheat Ridge chipped in financially. Its urban renewal authority earmarked $9 million for the demolition and future development of the property.

But a single line in the zoning code tanked the deal. More headaches ensued.

“I could spend an hour telling you all the quirks and problems,” he said.

The investor explained that a “quirk” in the code required retail to be built on the site. But the property is off the highway in the suburbs – not exactly ideal for mixed-use development.

Sherman got the issue corrected and the site was again primed for an apartment complex.

But then came the asbestos. The company doing the work did a “horrible job,” Sherman said.

He had to remediate the site a second time to ensure all of the toxic material was gone.

Then, Sherman had to battle with Xcel to ensure there was enough power to support an apartment complex. The Colorado Department of Transportation also got in the way, with some of its staff telling him that he couldn’t build on the property due to a supposed moratorium on highway construction in the area, he said.

Sherman said both delays were due to the agencies’ errors. The hiccups cost him months – and leverage.

“As things kept changing and the market was falling and interest rates were rising, they had a lot of leverage on me,” Sherman said of the buyer, Trinsic, who required him to demolish the building as the delays piled up.

“It was iconic. But to me, it was a money pit as an owner, a real money pit.”

Sherman bought the property in January 2023 for $9 million. At the time, he considered rehabbing the motel into a Marriott. But the hotel brand wasn’t interested, so he explored converting the 50-year-old building into apartments.

“Then it dawned on me that maybe if I was going to rezone out for apartments, it may be worth more as vacant land,” he said.

The motel was once a key asset to the Denver suburb. It even hosted Elvis Presley for a visit back in 1976. But by the time Sherman got his hands on it, the property’s heyday was long gone.

“The city of Wheat Ridge did not like the American Motel,” Sherman said. “It wasn’t horribly maintained, but the clientele there paid in cash, it was very transient, there were a lot of police calls to that site.”

The business closed for good in the summer of 2025. Sherman said all of the complications with the deal delayed the sale of the property by two years. But he did still turn a profit, he said.

“It went from a great deal to a good deal,” he added.

Read more from our partner, .

Deputies responded to a call about a bear at River Run apartments in Eagle-Vail, about halfway between Vail and Avon off of Interstate 70, at 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 24, according to the sheriff’s office.

The deputies found a group of about 40 people gathered near a sow and two cubs to watch and record them, and after dispersing the crowd tried to haze, or scare, the bears away from the area.

Colorado bear encounters have nearly doubled over 2025

Hazing is a way to get wild animals to leave residential areas by making them afraid of humans so they stay away from places where they don’t belong, like schools and backyards.

“Deputies made this decision because the bears were not fazed by humans, people continued to gather, and bears had been reported in the area repeatedly, seemingly attracted by the apartment's trash,” sheriff’s officials wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

One week earlier, on Aug. 17, a bear with two cubs attacked a man at the same apartment complex as he was leaving the laundry room, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. It����ap unknown if it was the same bear that later charged deputies, the sheriff’s office said.

Deputies yelled at the bears to try to move them, which caused the sow to charge a deputy. When the yelling didn’t work, a deputy fired a rubber bullet to push her away from the apartments and toward the river, which hit her on her back leg.

The bear started pacing and, as the deputy moved back to put a boulder between them, the bear charged the deputy, the sheriff’s office said.

Sheriff’s officials published a video that showed parts of the encounter captured on the deputy’s body-worn camera, including the bear running at the deputy and the cubs following her after she was shot.

Deputies stayed at the scene to make sure no one approached the cubs, and CPW staff arrived at the scene to capture and relocate the cubs just before 9 p.m. The cubs are receiving care at a CPW rehabilitation center in Silt, the sheriff’s office said.

“We are heartbroken that a bear was killed in self-defense,” sheriff’s officials said in a statement. “We do not take lightly the responsibility we have in Eagle County to cohabitate with wildlife or the duty we have to protect both citizens and visitors.”

Colorado is seeing a significant increase in black bear sightings and conflicts because of extreme drought that's cut into their natural food supply as the animals enter , when bears try to eat as much food as possible before hibernation. Bears will feed for up to 22 hours a day to consume the 20,000 daily calories they need to survive hibernation, according to CPW.

CPW officials have euthanized 294 bears and relocated 98 others since Jan. 1 through the end of August, more than triple the number of euthanasias and relocations during the same time frame in 2025. Bear sightings and conflicts have also more than doubled, according to the agency.

The crash happened at 2:39 p.m. on I-70 near mile 326 when the truck rolled off of the right shoulder and caught fire, Trooper Hunter Mathews said in a statement.

It’s not clear what caused the crash, but the fire was quickly extinguished, Mathews said. The driver and only occupant was taken to the hospital with unknown injuries.

The highway closed between U.S. 40 and exit 328 for the I-70 south business loop, west of Deer Trail, for a little over an hour. The road reopened at 3:42 p.m., Mathews said.

Construction workers need to install a moveable platform on a bridge column that will allow crews to build the bridge segment by segment, CDOT said in a news release Wednesday.

To install the platform, CDOT will close one lane of westbound I-70 at exit 244 for U.S. 6 from 9 p.m. Wednesday to 5 a.m. Thursday.

One eastbound lane will be closed at the same exit from 9 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Saturday; 9 p.m. Monday to 5 a.m. Tuesday; and 9 p.m. Tuesday to 5 a.m. Wednesday so crews can remove some temporary structures on another column, state officials said.

Westbound drivers will merge into one lane and use U.S. 6 ramps to continue on I-70, while eastbound drivers will merge and exit at U.S. 6 and drive east on the U.S. 40 frontage road before getting back on I-70 at exit 248.

Construction may change based on the weather, and drivers can get by texting “floydhill” to 21000.

Ty Anderson was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and illegally discharging a firearm, police said in a news release Monday. He is suspected of participating in a quadruple shooting outside Volt Club at 2121 Sheridan Blvd., just after midnight Saturday morning.

A security guard and three other people were shot in the parking lot outside the after an assault or fight escalated into an exchange of gunfire, Denver police said. The security guard was attempting to intervene in the dispute — which involved a large group — when the guard was grazed in the foot, police spokesman Doug Schepman said.

Investigators believe both the security guard and Anderson fired shots, and are working to determine if any other people fired, Schepman said.

The guard told investigators that “people in the parking lot began firing guns,” that he did not remember firing his own weapon and that he blacked out, according to Anderson’s arrest affidavit.

All of the victims are expected to survive. Investigators recovered one 9 mm spent casing and six .40 caliber spent casings, according to the affidavit, as well as four guns.

A witness told police that Anderson fired out the window of a dark gray Dodge Charger, according to the affidavit.

Police officers pursued a driver who fled the scene in a Charger, following from a distance and with a helicopter until several passengers jumped out at 2700 block of S. Newton Street, including Anderson. He and two other passengers were detained after they left the car. Anderson was in possession of a gun, according to the affidavit, which did not describe the weapon.

The driver of the Charger kept going after the passengers jumped out, driving until officers used a precision immobilization technique to force the vehicle to stop near the interchange of Interstate 70 and Interstate 25, according to an affidavit. The driver, Izrial Martin, 22, was arrested on suspicion of vehicular eluding and assault. A passenger who’d remained in the car was also detained, police said.

Of those detained, only Anderson and Martin have been arrested so far, Schepman said, noting the possibility for additional arrests.

Anderson was previously arrested in May and charged in Denver County Court with possessing a gun while under the influence of alcohol and disorderly conduct in a separate incident.

He posted a $1,500 bail on the day of the incident, May 9, and was released from jail, court records show. That prior case is pending and he is next due in court in September, court records show. Court records that detail the circumstances of the May incident were not immediately available Monday.

On the nightclub shooting, Anderson posted a $50,000 bail and was released from jail Monday, according to court records. He is next due in court Aug. 31.

Representatives for the club could not be reached for comment Monday.

The shooting is the second multi-victim shooting at a Denver nightclub in less than a month. On July 20, a 25-year-old man was killed and eight other people were shot at Ultra Lounge East, a nightclub at 9755 E. Hampden Ave., that has since shuttered.

The city also ordered a nightclub in Five Points, Olympus Discotheque, to shut down last week after a security guard was accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a patron in the club after it closed for the night.

The driver, as 32-year-old Briana Brink from Colorado Springs, had a blood-alcohol level nearly three times higher than the legal limit before the crash on July 20, investigators found. She was driving east in the westbound lanes of I-70 not far from the Utah border and collided with a Ford F-150 just after 11:36 a.m.

Three adults and three children in the truck were seriously injured in the crash, according to state patrol. They were all from Thornton. The wrong-way driver, Brink, died at the scene.

The Mesa County Coroner’s Office did not answer questions about how investigators determined the crash was intentional.

Colorado State Trooper Sherri Mendez referred questions about the crash to the coroner’s office.

The trooper was airlifted to the hospital after the crash, which involved four vehicles across lanes in both directions, according to a news release from the Colorado State Patrol.

State patrol officials said the unidentified trooper was parked on the right shoulder of eastbound I-70 near the tunnel at about 10:45 a.m. Monday when he overheard on the radio that there was a crash behind him in the westbound lanes, according to the news release.

He activated his emergency lights and started to turn across traffic to respond to the crash, but was hit by an eastbound Subaru Forester SUV, state patrol officials said in the release. The crash sent the trooper and the SUV across the highway median, striking two pickup trucks in the westbound lanes.

Paramedics took the Subaru driver and passenger, an elderly couple, to the hospital with unknown injuries, state patrol officials said. No one in the pickup trucks was injured.

Buck, a state patrol police dog in the car with the trooper, was taken to a veterinarian “as a precautionary measure,” officials said.

I-70 was closed in both directions between Exit 216 for Loveland Pass and Colorado 9, near Silverthorne, at about 11 a.m. Monday, . Eastbound I-70 reopened shortly before 1:45 p.m., and the westbound lanes reopened at about 2:20 p.m., according to the agency.

showed westbound traffic stalled for miles before the highway reopened.

Anyone with information about the crash is asked to contact Colorado State Patrol investigators at 303-239-4501 and reference case number VC260276.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

The westbound interstate was closed for several hours between New Castle and Silt, but had reopened as of 4:35 p.m. Traffic was rerouted through U.S. 6 during the closure. Eastbound lanes were not affected by the flooding.

The interstate had just reopened Wednesday evening after being closed for several days due to “torrential rain and hail,” causing a mudslide that was 3 feet deep in some areas.

As of 9:20 a.m., eastbound I-70 had reopened between Exit 228 for Georgetown and U.S. 40, . The highway first closed at about 5:50 a.m. Wednesday.

showed a commercial semitrailer on fire early Wednesday morning. No injuries were reported, and the fire was knocked down by 6:15 a.m., sheriff’s officials said.

The Colorado State Patrol is investigating the fire, Clear Creek sheriff’s officials said.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

A tan Subaru Outback driving east on westbound I-70 crashed into a white Ford F-150 just west of Loma at about 11:36 a.m. Monday, according to a news release from the agency. The Subaru then slid down an embankment, rolled and caught fire, according to the release.

The driver of the Subaru, a 32-year-old woman from Colorado Springs, died at the scene of the crash, state patrol officials said. She will be identified by the Mesa County Coroner’s Office.

Six people from Thornton, including at least two minors, were in the Ford, according to the agency.

The 40-year-old man driving the Ford and his five passengers — a 32-year-old woman, a 13-year-old whose gender was not specified, a 10-year-old girl and two passengers of unknown ages and genders — were all taken to the hospital with “serious” injuries, state patrol officials said in a Monday night update. None of the Ford occupants have been publicly identified.

The crash closed westbound I-70 near mile marker 4 for roughly five hours. It reopened shortly before 4:40 p.m. Monday, according to the state patrol.

The state patrol’s vehicular crimes unit is investigating the crash. Anyone who witnessed or has information about the crash is asked to contact investigators at 970-249-4392.