{"id":3459,"date":"2026-07-09T20:34:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T20:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3459"},"modified":"2026-07-09T20:34:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T20:34:50","slug":"editorial-colfax-collective-making-something-right-in-aurora-that-went-horribly-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3459","title":{"rendered":"EDITORIAL: Colfax Collective making something right in Aurora that went horribly wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Aurora, like the metro area, has seen makeover miracles before.<\/p>\n

A community non-profit group is working to take on re-creating an Aurora problem so fearsome it drew gasps from across the nation and even the globe.<\/p>\n

The East Colfax Community Collective has purchased the notorious Edge of Lowry apartment complex to rehabilitate the 60 units across six buildings to create comfortable places to live for people who often struggle to afford comfortable places to live.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t know the name of the complex right off, you know the sordid story behind the northwest Aurora apartment complex, currently shuttered because it\u2019s uninhabitable.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The Edge is one of three apartment complexes in the area, all owned by the same New York landlord, that regularly was the focus of Fox News in 2024 as Donald Trump cranked up his bid for another shot at the White House.<\/p>\n

The apartments were woven into a hysterical false narrative powered by former Aurora City Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky, beginning in the summer of 2024. Jurinsky told local right-wing radio talk shows, and then Fox News personalities, that Aurora was being overrun by notorious Venezuelan gangsters in the Tren de Aragua mob.<\/p>\n

It was the same yarn CBZ Management officials told in trying to justify why their three apartment complexes were rife with problems, ranging from rodent infestations, to mountains of garbage and rampant hoodlum antics and crimes.<\/p>\n

The anti-immigrant narrative was tied to an influx months earlier of as many as 40,000 Venezuelan immigrants trafficked to Denver by Texas state officials in one of the darkest episodes in American history since the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.<\/p>\n

As the story told by Jurinsky, and later Trump himself, went, Tren De Aragua members infiltrated the Edge apartments, destroyed them, and took over the complex, extorting the few honest residents in the building and locking out building owner management.<\/p>\n

When police and city officials said the facts didn\u2019t support the fabulous saga, Jurinsky and others said they were lying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In reality, there\u2019s plenty of proof that the city had been investigating issues linked to serious mismanagement of the complex even before the first Venezuelan immigrant got off the first bus from Texas in Denver.<\/p>\n

Well-documented investigations by the city made clear that despite Mayor Mike Coffman\u2019s preliminary allegiance to the false narrative, he eventually surmised that the problems related to the complex were caused by what he deemed as \u201cslumlords.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city eventually began court action against CBZ, but not before Trump made Aurora one of two national targets of his campaign to drive immigrants from the nation. He insisted that not just these three apartments, but the entire city of Aurora had become a haven for violent immigrant gangsters. An Ohio city where Trump lied about Haitian immigrants eating people\u2019s dogs and cats matched the madness spun around Aurora.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the city forced the complex to shut down.<\/p>\n

The East Colfax Collective has announced it purchased the Edge complex for $4.45 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really powerful opportunity to reclaim and revive a property that has long been a toxic asset in the community and a source of harm in the community and turn it into something positive, into community-controlled affordable housing,\u201d Carson Bryant, a director for the East Colfax Community Collective, said. \u201cThe redemption arc opportunity here is really strong and is exactly the kind of project we\u2019re interested in pursuing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The justice of how this story will end, and there\u2019s no reason to doubt how it will, is virtually poetic.<\/p>\n

This embattled apartment complex has dragged the neighborhood, and the city, down. The lies told by local lawmakers and Trump have done serious and long-lasting damage to the northwest Aurora community, and the city as well.<\/p>\n

A rebirth of The Edge, coupled with a new city-sponsored effort to restore the East Colfax Avenue corridor neighborhoods, have a real chance to do here what Dana Crawford did for the decayed Larimer Street in Denver in the 1960s and 1970s, turning a strip of flop-houses, abandoned buildings and grunge into a place where all kinds of people liked to come to eat, shop, live and hang out.<\/p>\n

City lawmakers should step up to do all they can to help this non-profit organization create a safe, comfortable and affordable place for residents who often work harder and longer than any of us and rarely get an opportunity to get their just reward.<\/p>\n

Read more Aurora traffic enforcement cuts crashes by 86% at crash-prone I-225 and Parker interchanges<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Read more What to know about protecting pets from the New World screwworm fly<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Read more Researchers uncover racist police practices in 1960s Denver neighborhoods<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora, like the metro area, has seen makeover miracles before. A community non-profit group is working to take on re-creating an Aurora problem so fearsome it drew gasps from across the nation and even the globe. 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