The old American Motel property at the corner of Kipling Street and Interstate 70 in Wheat Ridge has sold for $16.5 million, closing out a years-long saga that began with a notorious crime magnet and ends with an $80 million apartment complex under construction. Aspen resident and hospitality investor Tony Sherman, who bought the site in January 2023 for $9 million, sold the 5.8-acre parcel at 10101 W. I-70 Frontage Road North to Dallas-based developer Trinsic Residential Group, which is now developing a 335-unit community called Aura Wheat Ridge.
The $16.5 million sale, first reported by The Denver Post, closed out a deal that Sherman says was delayed by roughly two years. Connect CRE also reported on the transaction. Sherman, who acquired the property under the Terrapin Investments entity, spent years remediating and rezoning the site before finally handing it off to Trinsic for construction.
Getting there wasn't easy. Sherman told the Post that Colorado Department of Transportation staff informed him he couldn't build on the property because of a supposed highway-construction moratorium, a setback that, along with other agency delays, cost him months and negotiating leverage. He also had to fight Xcel Energy over securing sufficient power for an apartment complex, and he says a demolition contractor did a horrible job handling asbestos-related work, forcing him to remediate the site a second time to remove the toxic material.
From Motel Conversion to Bulldozed Lot
Sherman didn't always plan to tear the building down. Per the Post's reporting, he explored converting the 50-year-old motel into apartments and even considered rehabbing it into a Marriott-branded property, though Marriott was not interested in the conversion. Trinsic Residential Group ultimately required Sherman to demolish the building outright before it would move forward, and he now says the land was more profitable and valuable as a cleared parcel than as a renovated motel.
Sherman also had to get the local zoning code corrected, since it originally required retail to be built on the site rather than housing. He told the Post that the City of Wheat Ridge disliked the American Motel, and it's not hard to see why: the Denver Gazette reports that in 2019, roughly 7% of all police arrests across the entire city occurred at that single address, making it one of Wheat Ridge's highest-volume crime hotspots before its closure, according to the Denver Gazette. Police reported ongoing drug activity, theft, and violent incidents centered at the property.
A Regulatory Crackdown Years in the Making
The motel's demise didn't happen in isolation. Wheat Ridge enacted a hotel licensing program after officials presented data on police activity at local hotels. Following that crackdown, the city reported a drop of more than 50% in hotel-related police calls and a 28.5% decrease in overall crime along the I-70/Kipling interchange corridor, per Jeffco BdB's reporting on the ordinance's effects.
Public money also played a role in clearing the site. Board minutes from Renewal Wheat Ridge, the city's urban renewal authority, show it earmarked $9 million in tax increment financing bond funds for the redevelopment. Renewal Wheat Ridge was involved in the redevelopment financing.
Elvis Once Slept Here
Long before it became a byword for blight, the property had a much brighter chapter. Built in 1975 as a Ramada, the motel hosted Elvis Presley during his 1976 trip to Vail, an event that prompted the owners to name a guest room in his honor. Decades later, the same building was better known for a large red sign advertising rooms at $32.95 and for persistent complaints about pests and decay, per the Denver Gazette's account. The American Motel closed permanently in the summer of 2025.
Its closure didn't happen without a plan for the people living there. Ahead of the shutdown, Wheat Ridge officials partnered with the nonprofit Family Tree to help relocate 18 resident households into permanent housing across the Denver metro area, using municipal funding to help with relocation and permanent housing, according to IM FROM DENVER.
Groundbreaking on Aura Wheat Ridge
The property was formally rezoned in 2022 from commercial to mixed-use commercial, opening the door for the dense residential project now underway. Trinsic Residential Group, which previously entered the Denver market with its Aura Arts District community in Denver's Baker neighborhood, marks its expansion into west-metro suburban infill with the new project, per the Gazette's reporting.
Contractor Bryan Construction joined Trinsic and local officials to break ground on Aura Wheat Ridge, the roughly $80 million, 335-unit multifamily community rising on the former motel site. City officials describe the project as replacing a blighted motel along the I-70 and Kipling corridor with modern apartment units and streetscape upgrades — a stark contrast to a stretch of frontage road once defined by one of the city's most persistent crime problems.
