Residents leave apartment in Fitzsimons Place in Aurora after lawsuit filed

More than 85 families living in a demolished apartment building in Aurora were ordered to leave their homes Tuesday morning by the city, but one of the former tenants of Fitzsimons Place has sued the property’s owners and managers.

Javier Hidalgo filed the lawsuit Monday to force landlords to provide housing for him and other displaced residents. The lawsuit cites conditions that render the 98-unit building “fundamentally uninhabitable,” including water leaks, pest infestations and structural damage.

Hidalgo is asking the Adams County District Court to order property owner Nome Partners LLC, property management company CBZ Management and their agents Shmaryahu and Zev Baumgarten to provide the former residents with either housing similar to their old ones or hotel stays for at least 60 days.

“Every single one of us tenants in this building feels cheated,” Hidalgo said in Spanish on Tuesday afternoon. “We have been robbed from the beginning.”

Benjamin DeGolia, Hidalgo’s lawyer, said he also plans to collect a significant amount of unpaid rent from each tenant.

“Unfortunately, we see a lot of neglected buildings in the Denver metropolitan area,” DeGolia said. “But I must also say that the conditions in this building are exceptionally horrific.”

The latest litigation follows a lawsuit filed by the City of Aurora against Zev Baumgarten over long-standing zoning code violations at Fitzsimons Place. However, CBZ Management argued that recent problems at the property were caused by the presence of a transnational Venezuelan gang in the building.

Spokespeople for the property management company declined to comment further.

On Tuesday morning, the building’s tenants – many of them Venezuelan migrants – were still trying to complete their move-out before police arrived shortly after 7 a.m., said Nate Kassa, a community organizer with the East Colfax Community Collective. The city gave residents only six days to move out.

“We were still in a rush to get everyone out of all four floors,” Kassa said. “Right now, these people are literally homeless.”

Aurora city spokesman Ryan Luby confirmed that the building, 1568 Nome St. near the Anschutz Medical Campus, appeared to have been evacuated at 9:30 a.m.

Around that time, the East Colfax Community Collective was temporarily housing 70 former tenants in 25 hotel rooms, and at least 30 more rooms were available to those whose applications were still being processed, Luby said.

Only “a handful” of residents have found other housing options, Kassa said. Since early check-in at hotels was not possible on Tuesday, former tenants waited at the corner of Oswego Street and East 16th Avenue around 1 p.m.

“Parents are just ready to move on to the next place,” Kassa said. “We as a community need to push the city to keep its promises.”

The city will cover hotel stays through the end of August. When former tenants find new housing, organizations working with Aurora authorities will pay their new security deposits through a flexible fund, Luby said.

Later, he said, the city plans to recoup the money spent on the tax exemption, deposits and hotel rooms from the CBZ administration and its clients.