The American Ninja Warrior Adventure Park in southeast Denver, which shut down in January after less than a year in business, has now agreed to pay $237,588 in back rent.
An out-of-court settlement between the gym and Antero Retail Group, a subsidiary of Legacy Capital Partners in Denver, was filed Nov. 17, the same day a four-day civil trial was to begin downtown. The two sides have been suing each other for the past year.
Based on the NBC game show, the 37,000-square-foot indoor park was only the second Ninja Warrior location in the U.S. when it signed a 10-year lease at 7150 Leetsdale Drive in March 2023 and then, after $1 million in renovations, opened in June 2024. It soon struggled.
“Due to a variety of issues, some of which were spelled out in (its) counterclaim, Ninja Leisure Denver’s business was slow to develop,” the tenant told BusinessDen in a statement.
Nine days after being sued for $237,588 in back rent in November 2024, Ninja Leisure Denver countersued Legacy, a private equity firm, for negligence at 7150 Leetsdale Drive. The gym “experienced problems with criminal activity that sends a message to its customers that the shopping center is not a safe place to bring their families,” the tenant alleged.
Between April and August 2024, the same suspect burglarized the gym five times, there were drug overdoses, a bag of drugs was found at the back of the gym and there were “routine drug deals in the parking lot,” the company claimed. Finally, in November 2024, four men were shot a few doors down and the gym could not open that day because police blocked its parking lot.
The tenant accused its landlord of failing to act on security concerns and low-level crime there in the months before the shooting, and also of failing to repair a roof. Leaks occurred every time it rained and required the gym to close several times in 2024, according to the countersuit.
“Given time, the business could have returned to profit and Ninja Leisure Denver had requested some relief for rent to allow the business to recover, but were offered only either full payment or eviction, which ultimately meant the doors had to close,” the tenant said last week.
“We agreed to a stipulated judgment solely to avoid the cost of litigation, something Ninja Leisure Denver cannot afford due to the eviction process,” according to its statement.
Legacy did not respond to a request for comment on the settlement. Its attorneys were Alan Sweetbaum and Michael Foster with the Sweetbaum Miller law firm in Denver.
Ninja Leisure Denver’s lawyer was Alan Schindler in the Denver office of Spencer Fane.
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