LOCAL STORY CREDIT: DILLON WANNER, UNSPLASH INSIDE THE DENVER TENANT POWER MOVEMENT BY ROBERT DAVIS ABIGAIL ESPINO STARTED ORGANIZING A TENANT UNION at the Edge26 apartment complex in Edgewater after the landlord Trion Properties—a multifamily real estate investment firm headquartered in Hollywood, California—increased her rent by more than 55% from $900 to $1,400 per month. She said she had also heard from Hispanic families at the complex that white families were getting their maintenance issues first, sometimes a month or two ahead of Hispanic families that filed similar work tickets. Some Hispanic families even resorted to fixing their own dishwashers and showers because of it, Espino added. Some households, like Espino’s, lived without hot water for a week or more last winter, she said. Those testimonies hit home for Espino, who told Denver VOICE that part of the issue was that Trion didn’t have someone in the front office who spoke Spanish. “I couldn’t believe that some people were living like that and the apartment managers weren’t doing anything to fix it,” Espino said. So, the Edge26 tenants started organizing a union with the help of Edgewater Collective, a local nonprofit organization. They showed up to city council meetings and told the community about their living conditions. At first, Espino said a lot of people showed up, and that seemed to push Trion to hire an employee who spoke Spanish. But then attendance at the tenant meetings started to dwindle. Espino said she suspected people stopped coming because the union couldn’t address the community’s main concern—rent increases. “We are here to help, but there are some things that we just can’t address. And unfortunately, rent is one of them,” Espino said. Espino’s situation at Edge26 is similar to the experiences that many tenants in Denver face as the city’s multifamily market continues to soar. Commercial real estate firm Marcus and Millchap’s Q2 2023 Denver Multifamily Market Report found that the city’s 90% rent payment fulfillment rate and high average yields continue to draw out-of-state investors to the market. Out-of-state investors accounted for nearly half of all transactions over the last 12 months and that investment activity is one reason why the city’s average rent has increased by more than 28% since March 2020 up to nearly $2,000 per month, according to the report. Trion Properties is just one company that sees huge profit potential in the Denver metro area’s multifamily market. Since 2020, Trion has acquired properties such as The View at North Peak Apartments, a 288-unit community in Northglenn, for $38 million; the 402-unit Terra Village in Edgewater (which was later rebranded as Edge26) for $109 million, and a 198-unit complex in Aurora called Trailpoint on Highline for about $28 million. Trion also offers its more A WORKER BUILDING A MULTIFAMILY TOWNHOUSE SITS ON THE FRAMING IN ARVADA, COLORADO. CREDIT: REUTERS 8 DENVER VOICE August 2023
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