Lakewood demolishes two motels that were magnet for crime

Lakewood’s urban renewal authority has demolished two of the city’s most problematic motels in recent months.

The Blue Sky Motel at 6203-6205 W. Colfax Ave. was taken down last month, while the Chalet Motel at 6051 W. Alameda Ave. was demolished in November.

It cost the Lakewood Reinvestment Authority $6 million combined to acquire and flatten the two motels, according to city officials.

The Blue Sky shut down in fall 2021 and the Chalet in June 2023. Both had become magnets for crime and were determined to be a blight on the community.

In 2019, a 32-year-old woman was murdered in one of the Blue Sky’s rooms. Two years later, a 29-year-old man was shot and killed there.

Lakewood said in a January 2022 post on the city’s website that it had revoked the lodging license of the Blue Sky mainly due to the extreme volume of police calls on the property.

A few months after closing, the motel caught on fire. Several of its rooms were scorched.

Lakewood Police, meanwhile, responded to 237 calls for service at the Chalet in the three-year span between 2020 and 2022, according to the department.

Isabella Nunez and Katie Faltys, both 30, both work for the Lakewood Reinvestment Authority and helped make the acquisition and demolition happen.

They said Oakland-based consultant Economic & Planning Systems is conducting a study to determine the best uses for the land and the financial feasibility of them. Ideas floated by city officials and community members range from mixed-use multifamily development to affordable housing for artists.

Before the end of the year, Lakewood hopes to begin accepting proposals from developers interested in building on the vacant lots.

The Blue Sky site is about half an acre and the Chalet site is 0.83 acres. Both are zoned for mixed-use development.

The LRA’s commissioners, which consist of Lakewood’s 11 city council members and four other government officials, will have the final say on which proposals get accepted.

“Anything there is better than what was there,” Nunez said.

Both motels were purchased because there was a “willing seller,” as they were listed on the market, Nunez and Faltys said. The authority doesn’t currently plan to buy and tear down other motels in the city, although it always monitors what is for sale, they said.

To fund the acquisitions, the authority is using a form of tax increment financing, a tool that urban renewal authorities use.

After the authority was formed in 1998, it started establishing “reinvestment area projects,” with the amount of property taxes collected at the time of establishment serving as a benchmark. As the amount of taxes remitted over time increases due to rising property values, the surplus compared to the benchmark is set aside to be reinvested in the area.

The Blue Sky motel falls within a West Colfax reinvestment area. That fund has “a few million” left in its coffers for the year in the wake of the motel’s demolition. The Chalet is part of an Alameda reinvestment area, whose fund ran out last year as its 25-year investment period expired at the end of 2023.