On Wednesday, Monfort Cos. announced the acquisition of two well-known properties in downtown Denver near Coors Field: 1962 Market St., the former home of El Chapultepec, and 1320 20th St., home to The Giggling Grizzly.
According to Westword, which first reported the move, Monfort bought the two buildings for $5.8M and plans to join them into a single venue. The sale further establishes the development group as a major player in the Ballpark neighborhood, where it has now made four acquisitions since 2018. The same players collaborated on Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row, a historic building redeveloped into a restaurant and nightclub, which sold earlier this year for $24M.
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When it closed in December 2020, El Chapultepec had been Denver’s oldest jazz club, famous for hosting acts like Ella Fitzgerald, Wynton Marsalis and Frank Sinatra. The plans for both properties are not yet finalized, a press representative told Bisnow.
But in a ceremonial groundbreaking attended by Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, Kenny Monfort, an owner and director of Monfort Cos., spoke highly of the El Chapultepec building’s role in Denver history, and said that future redevelopment efforts will try to honor its legacy.
“We will not do anything to erase Chapultepec out of the history books,” said Monfort, who is the son of Charles Monfort, a primary owner of the Colorado Rockies. “In fact, we're going to embrace the history that that place had in Denver. If you're from Denver, you've been there for sure. If you hadn't been there, it's a shame. It was a real gem in the city of Denver, and we hope to embrace that and upgrade it into a more modern service for this community.”
The groundbreaking took place in front of 1920 and 1926 Market St., a 21K SF historic property Monfort and Riot Hospitality Group are developing into Riot House, a “high-energy” restaurant and live music concept that will feature a rooftop patio and dance floor. Denver’s Riot House will be the second in the U.S., with an existing location already operating in Scottsdale, Arizona.
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At the groundbreaking, Hancock praised the acquisitions as a positive development for the neighborhood.
“This is going to become, I know, the party central of downtown Denver,” he said. “Y'all ready for that?”
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