A Sunflower Seeds on Colfax
By Erin Vanderberg
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Denver City Council took the final vote on whether or not to approve the rezoning necessary to build the Sunflower Market on Monday, January 30th, after our publication went to print. Keep up with the story by following our Twitter account, @ParkHillNews.
Sean Mandel had never given much thought to the family business, the Rosen Properties property management firm that owns around 100 residential and commercial units primarily on or around east Colfax, which his grandfather started as a side venture to Rosen-Novak Ford.
Mandel did his undergrad work at Tulane University in New Orleans, worked for CALPIRG for a few years in San Diego, and then earned his masters in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University in New York. His first job when he moved home to Denver was a three-year stint in the Governor’s Energy Office.
But his mom, Sharon Rosen, who had worked for his grandfather for almost 30 years, began coming to Sean with conundrums. The biggest of them was how to revitalize the old dealership property at Colfax and Garfield.
Sean, who lives in Congress Park, and disdains that abandoned property as much as anyone else in the neighborhood, started working on the project in 2010. For him, it was a trial by fire, not having much experience in the world of development. One of the first things he learned was that he didn’t have a lot of control over who was interested in the property. Then Sunflower became interested.
Rezoning was not an original objective of the project, but it came down to adequately parking the site, which requires that three homes, owned by Rosen Properties and with tenants on a month-to-month lease, be razed and rezoned to allow a parking lot to be built behind the Colfax storefront.
“The most important thing for me has been carefully balancing all the competing priorities,” said Rosen. “A lot of property managers operate under a limited set of priorities, and I try to be more inclusive in what I’m doing and how I’m doing it. Anytime you expand your considerations, there can be more conflict, but I think we owe that consideration to our community. Our decisions have an impact beyond our business.”
Out of several months of meetings with the Fax Partnership, Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods, Colfax on the Hill, Congress Park neighbors and particularly the South City Park Neighborhood Association, a Memorandum of Understanding was developed that, according to Sean, everyone is happy with.
If the project gets the green light from Denver City Council, who received over 350 letters via the Planning Board in support of a Colfax grocer, then development will begin immediately, with Evergreen Development Company overseeing the construction – a partnership necessitated by capital outlay and expertise – with a tentative grand opening date around the holidays in 2012.
“I have total faith in Colfax,” said Rosen. “People don’t understand the demographics that occur in the wonderful neighborhoods that surround Colfax and I’m excited to see how the level of interest in this neighborhood changes as this project solidifies.”
And, personally, he’s really looking forward to not having to drive to the store.