The Edge at Lowry, one of the nation’s most notorious apartment complexes before being shut down in 2025, has sold.
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Five of the complex’s six buildings in the 1200 block of Dallas in Aurora were purchased this month by the East Colfax Community Collective’s mixed-income neighborhood trust, public records show.
The collective is “focused on fighting displacement in the East Colfax area of Denver and Aurora,” according to trust director Carson Bryant. Founded in 2019, the organization began buying apartment buildings through the trust in 2024.
The collective paid $4.5 million on June 3 for the 60 units at Edge at Lowry, according to public records. The seller, an affiliate of CBZ Management, paid $6.9 million for them in 2019.
Neither deal included a sixth building within the complex, at 1208 Dallas St., which is under separate ownership and is run by a receiver.
Edge at Lowry received national attention in the summer of 2024 when CBZ went public with claims that Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang was occupying it and two of the company’s other apartment complexes in Aurora. A resident subsequently released a video showing armed men ascending a stairwell.
Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, called Aurora a “war zone” and subsequently held a rally in the city announcing plans to aggressively crack down on illegal immigrants.
The city largely blamed New York-based CBZ, which Mayor Mike Coffman called an “out-of-state slumlord.”
Aurora shut down the Edge at Lowry in February 2025, citing “an immediate threat to public safety and welfare.” In February of this year, the city settled a lawsuit it had brought against the CBZ affiliate. The settlement called for the company to pay the city $300,000 and provide security at the complex until it was either sold or rehabbed.
“This was a high-profile example of poor housing conditions gone horribly wrong,” Bryant said.
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Bryant said the East Colfax Community Collective helped Edge at Lowry tenants during the national uproar, and later reached out to CBZ’s broker at Marcus & Millichap about buying it.
He said the collective made the purchase with the help of loans from the Impact Development Fund, Colorado Trust, Colorado Health Foundation, Denver Foundation and Trust Neighborhoods, a national nonprofit.
Bryant said the collective expects to spend $10 million to $12 million to renovate the complex.
“We plan to retain the original structure but basically do a down-to-stubs rehab,” Bryant said.
This is the second purchase the collective is making through its mixed-income housing trust. The first was of the 20-unit building at 1371 Xenia St. in Denver. Bryant said another deal is in the works.
“Usually we buy occupied buildings,” he said.
The collective plans to apply for low-income housing tax credits to finance the Edge at Lowry redevelopment.
“As challenging of a project as it is, it’s an opportunity to change this scar on the community into a thriving affordable housing community,” Bryant said.
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