City of Denver and Denver Post parent company reach tentative deal to end bitter lease dispute
The City of Denver and the parent company of the Denver Post have reached a tentative agreement to resolve a months-long, multimillion-dollar lease dispute over the iconic downtown building that bears the newspaper's name, CBS News Colorado has learned.
Three sources familiar with the negotiations confirmed the tentative agreement, speaking on the condition of anonymity. One cautioned that the deal is preliminary and has not been finalized. An attorney for the Denver Post declined to comment.
The dispute has its roots in a real estate transaction that drew criticism from the start. The city bought the 303,000-square-foot building at 101 West Colfax in early 2024 for $88.5 million, with plans to eventually house Denver's court system there. The purchase was approved by the Denver City Council on a 9-4 vote, with several members skeptical of the price and the timing -- concerns that proved prescient.
The dispute centers on a lease for the building that runs through October 2029. The Denver Post never owned the building -- it moved its newsroom to a printing facility in Adams County years ago. Yet the Post remained locked into a lease for the entire building. When the city bought the property, it inherited that lease.
The relationship unraveled last summer. DP Media Network LLC stopped paying its monthly rent of approximately $650,000 in August -- and the two sides have been negotiating ever since. The city issued a notice of default on August 25 and the dispute escalated into a legal battle. With accrued late fees of roughly $32,000 per month, the unpaid balance climbed steadily. By the time a tentative agreement was reached, DP Media Network LLC was approximately $7 million behind -- a significant blow to a city already grappling with a $200 million budget deficit and counting on nearly $8 million in annual rent income from building tenants.
The Post's position throughout the dispute was that it should not be bound by a lease for space it vacated years ago.
"We stopped occupying this space while the building was under private ownership long before the city purchased it, so there was never any impression we would be using the space when the city made the decision to purchase the building," Marshall Anstandig, general counsel for the Post's parent company MediaNews Group, said previously. DP Media Network had sought to buy out the remaining years of its lease rather than continue paying for empty space.
Reached Wednesday, Anstandig offered little.
"I don't really have a comment at this point," he told CBS News. "Whatever happens, happens."
Jon Ewing, a spokesperson for Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, said he could not comment on active settlement discussions.
The precise terms of the tentative agreement were not available at the time of this report. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston previously said the city would recover "every last penny" it was owed on the Denver Post lease.
