A former Veterans of Foreign Wars post along West Colfax Avenue in Denver has hit the market.
Colorado’s VFW organization is asking $5 million for the 20,000-square-foot building at 4747 W. Colfax Ave., which sits on just shy of an acre.
The site sits on two sides of an alley and is zoned C-MS-5, which generally allows mixed-use buildings up to five stories. The two-story post building was built in 1981.
The nation’s first VFW isn’t a smoky bar with vets telling war stories. Here’s what Post 1 in Denver is doing instead.
Post 501 was formed in 1920 and was the first thing locally to be named after Francis Brown Lowry, a Coloradan who was killed in action in World War I. He later became the namesake of the Lowry Air Force Base and thus the Lowry neighborhood, which now sits where the base once operated.
But Post 501 had its charter revoked last year by the national VFW organization, after the group’s statewide arm suspended the post and determined it could not be turned around.
“It is not done without a lot of due diligence and a lot of issues that we do not feel can be rectified by management of the post,” said Jesse Eastburn, adjutant/quartermaster for VFW Colorado.
Eastburn said the post officially had more than 100 veteran members, but only five were actively engaged — too few to even form a board.
Additionally, he said, there was “a lot of financial mismanagement.” The post building was rented out as event space, but leadership there failed to follow basic business practices, like ensuring the rental operation brought in more than it spent.
“It was very much financial illiteracy,” Eastburn said.
“At the end of the day, the biggest problem with 501 was they just wanted to be a bar,” he added.
The post was specifically built to be an event space, with the potential to have separate events going on each of the floors at once. The structure has a bar on both levels, a full kitchen on the ground floor and a catering prep area on the second floor. There are 70 surface parking spots.
“There is a way to reinvent this building that blends into some of the current concepts that are popular, like a beer garden,” said real estate broker Win King of King Commercial, who is marketing the property.
King has sold about eight post properties for the statewide organization over the past couple decades, and noted a buyer of 501 may be more interested in the land. It could be a good fit for income-restricted housing, he said, noting similar projects nearby.
“The preference probably from the city’s side and the community’s side is more housing … If you vacate the alley, you might be able to get north of 200 units,” he said.
The list price works out to $240 a square foot based on the existing building, and $122 a square foot based on the land.
The VFW’s priority is to get a reasonable amount from the property so it can use the funds to support its three service offices in Denver, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction. Staff there help veterans access benefits and navigate their Department of Veterans Affairs claims.
Other Denver VFW properties have also sold in recent years. Post 2461 along South Broadway sold in 2019 because “there just weren’t enough people coming into the post to pay the bills and keep the lights on,” the post’s commander said at the time. In 2018, a post at 2190 S. Platte River Drive was sold after it too had its charter revoked.
There are now just two posts left in Denver proper, Eastburn said.
Nationally, the VFW has seen declining membership amid struggles to recruit younger veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans must have served in a war, campaign or “expedition on foreign soil or in hostile waters” to join, per the VFW’s website.
Still, Eastburn said there are new posts being formed. Things like video game nights have seen success at attracting the younger generation. And the newer posts are often opting not to have a building, and instead meet somewhere like a local community center.
“They don’t have to worry about the financial strain of running a business,” he said.
