Here is more of the cloudy history from the strange Book of Belmar.  This has come to light due to the attention to detail provided by Kairoi’s excellent attorneys at the Brownstein law firm in their court filing with Jefferson County District Court.

 

Please notice the map above.  The green area represents Belmar Park.  The two red blocks represent the two parcels of land that comprise the Irongate Office Complex.  The red square on the left is 777 S Yarrow Street.  The red rectangle on the right is 777 S Wadsworth Boulevard.

The developer plans to build at least 411 apartments at 777 S Yarrow within the red square on the left.

An additional 650-800 apartments are planned within the rectangle on the right at 777 S Wadsworth.

How will they construct so many units at 777 S Wadsworth?

By building TWO 12-STORY TOWERS.

Two key points to consider.

1)  Kairoi always planned to develop BOTH Irongate parcels.  Namely, 777 S Yarrow Street and 777 S Wadsworth Blvd shown above.

This point is established by numerous statements in the legal brief filed on behalf of the developer including that Kairoi submitted a formal letter of intent to purchase both properties way back on October 9, 2020.

The two parcels are conveniently located directly across the street from each other and are both part of the Irongate office complex as shown on the map above.

Yet incredibly, the developer has succeeded in excluding the S Wadsworth location from consideration by the public or Lakewood’s Planning Department or Lakewood’s Planning Commission or Lakewood’s City Council or the Colorado Department of Transportation!  Wow!

On December 2, 2020, both the seller and Kairoi signed a letter of intent for Kairoi to purchase the TWO properties.

Lakewood was also in the loop even back then. On December 14, 2020, the City of Lakewood provided a formal zoning verification to Kairoi for the two properties.

In addition to the 777 S Yarrow location, as per page 6 of the court filing, Kairoi has always planned to construct multiple 12-story towers on the S Wadsworth site with 650-800 total housing units at that location.  There has been no change to that plan.

And since they are only proposing 411 units at the S Yarrow address, the majority of the units Kairoi plans to build at Irongate are not yet included in their major site plan or TRAFFIC STUDY since 650-800 units so far have been excluded.

Those 650-800 excluded units are over half of the project and Kairoi has succeeded in keeping that fact quiet.  Nobody is talking about that elephant in the room.

So let’s move on to the second key point.

2)  Kairoi has NEVER included the 777 S Wadsworth site in traffic planning.

Kimley-Horn prepared the traffic study which is dated July 2021.

The very first sentence of that traffic study states the project is  “to be located on the northwest corner of the Ohio Avenue and Yarrow Street intersection in Lakewood, Colorado.”

In other words, at the S Yarrow location.  The S Wadsworth location located just across the street was excluded from the Kimley-Horn traffic study even though Kairoi’s own attorney’s have stated to the court that Kairoi has always intended to develop both sites.

Even though 777 S Wadsworth is only a 15 second walk from 777 S Yarrow!

Summary – Kairoi has always planned to develop both Irongate locations but has not included any impacts of the 650-800 housing units planned at S Wadsworth including traffic impacts.  Those 650-800 units are the majority of the project but are currently excluded by Lakewood Planning from any planning considerations!

Corrollary: Lakewood Planning has also known since 2020 that the developer planned to develop both parcels but has allowed the developer to exclude the majority of the planned units including traffic impacts and everything else.

Why would that matter?  Won’t Kairoi eventually have to include the impacts of the 800 units and the two S Wadsworth 12-story towers?  Let’s hope so.

However, by evaluating traffic impacts in two separate phases instead of requiring all known traffic impacts to be evaluated together in Phase 1, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) may possibly omit some intersection or roadway improvement requirements that might otherwise be specified if full disclosure of traffic impacts were required by Lakewood.

EXAMPLE – Just imagine you are a big rig truck driver and you encounter a weigh station.  Maybe you know you are over the weight limit.  What if you could say to the scale operator, ‘Let’s just weigh half the load and then I will drive around the block and come back so you can weigh the other half.’   That way, you could be over the weight limit but would not trigger a violation at the weigh station because the full load would never be weighed.

That is exactly what is happening with the Kairoi project.  They are not being required to ‘weigh in’ with the full impact of their entire Irongate project.

This is important because if CDOT does not know about the full traffic impacts and therefore does not require an otherwise necessary highway improvement, the developer does not have to pay for it.

And traffic flow, traffic delays, safety, etc. may all be worse as a result.

And if improvements are ever made in the future by CDOT to address any issues that were concealed by never providing to CDOT full disclosure of the entire project scope, the developer may never be required to pay their fair share.

The 20% Rule

CDOT has a 20% rule.

As long as your project does not increase traffic impacts by 20% or more, you do not have to pay for any highway improvements.

Pro-Tip:  When you are allowed to break up a huge project into smaller phases, the smaller phases may not break the CDOT 20% rule even though the full project scope may break the 20% rule.

And if your total project does break the 20% rule but you do not to tell CDOT about the full scope of your project, the taxpayers may end up footing the entire bill for future infrastructure improvements to intersections or roadways.

When you are allowed to break up your project into multiple phases without ever having to disclose the full 100% of traffic impacts, that is potentially an enormous freebie to the developer.  It could even be worth $$ millions of dollars of cost avoidance by a developer.  But we may never know how much money, if any, Kairoi saves since Lakewood is allowing the developer to exclude the majority of the traffic impacts from the Phase 1 traffic study.

As a result, the taxpayers may have to pay for any omitted highway improvements if the developer is allowed to skip out on the tab.

South Wadsworth is a state highway and it will be impacted by building up to 800 units at Irongate that are totally excluded from the Phase 1 traffic study.

The traffic study admits the impact at West Ohio Avenue will break the 20% rule but the study assumes that will not be the case at West Virginia Avenue.

However, considering the full impact with triple the number of housing units will be 300% more than the study assumed, W Virginia Avenue could easily break the 20% rule.

And paying for any upgrades to the larger W Virginia Ave intersection could be expensive.  So there is certainly a financial incentive to avoid that potential cost.

It gets worse.  Developers are no longer required to provide parking!

As of June 30, 2025, Colorado’s new parking law kicks in that frees developers from the requirement to provide parking for multifamily projects!

Add that up. 411 units plus 800 units equals over 1,200 apartments with no need to provide any additional parking!

The average household in Lakewood has 2.0 vehicles.  That could mean 2,400 vehicles from the proposed Irongate/Kairoi apartment buildings with no place to park.

In fact, there could be less parking than there is today since both locations currently have parking lots.  Those existing parking lots would no longer be required.

Under the new law, a developer can no longer be required to provide parking for multifamily projects.

Why was such a law passed?  Because developers asked for it.

Nobody seems to know why Lakewood allows a developer to exclude critical data as far as traffic planning.  But the developer is probably applauding the excellent royal red carpet treatment they receive from city hall.

Unlike lowly citizens who have been threatened with police action for applauding thoughtful public comments at a city council meeting.

And you wonder if Lakewood has a love affair with developers?  Will anyone ever investigate what is going on?

Clearly, Lakewood urgently needs city council candidates who are willing to represent the best interests of voters and of Lakewood’s future. If you know qualified people who could do better than some who are now on council, please encourage them to run for city council.