PT's Strip Club Could Be Turned Into Affordable Housing
By Jeff Todd
DENVER (CBS4)- A strip club that had become a blight on the East Denver community after a fire never reopened and officially owned by the city.
Denver plans to redevelop the large lot on the corner of Colfax and Valentia into affordable housing, but exact plans won't be known for about a year.
"We've been identifying this property as a redevelopment opportunity obviously because the use really isn't neighborhood serving (as a strip club)," said Monica Martinez the Executive Director of The Fax Partnership, a non-profit focusing on revitalizing Colfax from Yosemite to Colorado Boulevard.
"This portion of Colfax has not experienced any of the real estate boom as the rest of the city. Everywhere else, you have cranes and construction. Nothing is really changed on this section. By adding housing density on this corridor we can see that change."
Martinez says the city owns another vacant lot at Colfax and Trenton, about five blocks away from the most recent site purchased.
"The hope is, with the city investing in parcels on the corridor, that give a nod to the private market to come and join us," Martinez said. "Then if we can do it right, and anticipate it, and plan for it, it will make that community stronger."
Jeff Todd joined the CBS4 team in 2011 covering the Western Slope in the Mountain Newsroom. Since 2015 he's been working across the Front Range in the Denver Headquarters. Follow him on Twitter @CBS4Jeff.
