As electronica music plays in the background, a cell phone video quickly pans over the ivied cloisters and abandoned chalkboards of the former Cathedral High School in Denver’s Uptown. Someone has scrawled and graffitied the phrase: “Open this as a homeless shelter, sanctuary.” The TikTok video, posted in March by urban exploration (urbex) trespassers, has garnered 37,000 likes.
Below the video, fellow urbex hobbyists recount their own arrests at the site. One lamented the vandalism, saying, “I went to this place when it was more recently abandoned a year ago and it was so pretty before people started doing stuff to it.”
Last month, the City of Denver fined GFI Development of New York $140,000 for allowing the property at 1840 Grant St. to become a magnet for vandals, vagrants, and the very curious. The city also threatened to impose much larger fines in the coming weeks. In response, GFI has filed a lawsuit against the city.
This legal dispute unfolds after a decade of disuse and failed redevelopment attempts for the aging property, whose red clay-tiled roof, off-white stucco, and cruciform architectural features date back to 1921.
“It has been a number of things. It started life as a high school, it has been a convent, it has been a care facility, and it has accommodated artist studios,” said John Deffenbaugh, CEO of Historic Denver. “So, it really does illustrate how accommodating older buildings can be.”
The Spanish Renaissance Revival property has faced prolonged vacancy since 1982, when Seton House, a convent on the site, closed due to dwindling enrollment. In 1989, Mother Teresa visited Denver and reopened the building as a hospice for AIDS patients. Seton House closed again in 2009 but narrowly avoided demolition in 2011, when neighbors and Historic Denver organized to save it.
The building reopened as a homeless shelter in 2012, but after the shelter closed, GFI purchased the property for $4.2 million in 2016. It has been largely vacant since.
GFI had planned to renovate the historic buildings and build an 11-story Ace Hotel atop an adjacent parking lot at 19th and Logan. However, the pandemic’s disruption of the hospitality industry ended that idea.
“That made it a scary venture for both lenders and investors, so it became impossible to finance its construction then, and still to this day,” GFI managing director Stan Spiegelman said at a city hearing on July 24.
Meanwhile, complaints from neighbors and police officers have been mounting, according to city records.
“The building needs to be re-secured to prohibit entry and further vandalism,” one complaint read. Another expressed concern, saying, “I worry the homeless will start a fire accidentally and ruin the building,” while adding that despite reporting the situation, “nobody has come to investigate.” Several comments noted the building was unsafe for local individuals and children.
In May, the Denver Police Department also contacted Spiegelman to express its concerns. “Multiple social media posts are now circulating, encouraging individuals to break into the structure, sharing instructions on how to gain access, and even urging others to further damage the property,” wrote community resource officer Kayla Knabe in an email dated May 28.
Knabe warned that the building is no longer structurally safe for first responders to enter and that juveniles were increasingly attracted to the site, raising serious concerns about potential injury or worse inside the building. She advised the developer to maintain a consistent, visible security presence at 1840 Grant rather than relying on guards who only stop by occasionally. However, this advice was reportedly not fully followed.
According to the lawsuit GFI filed on September 19, guards reportedly walk the property several times per week.
In July, Denver’s Department of Community Planning and Development asked city hearing officer Steceban Hudson to designate 1840 Grant St. as a neglected and derelict neighborhood nuisance. The department sought to fine GFI $139,500 for failure to maintain the property between October 2024 and July 2025, plus an additional $999 per day if the issues were not addressed by October 9.
“The Denver Police Department informed [the city] that they would no longer be able to send officers to the building to remove unauthorized individuals because the building was too dangerous for the officers to enter,” Hudson wrote in his August decision. He noted that officers are “blind and vulnerable to attack in the courtyard because it is so overgrown.”
Hudson criticized the developer for failing to follow through on its own plans to improve the property in 2022 and 2024, and observed that no new development plans had been submitted since 2020. However, he acknowledged GFI’s efforts to board up windows and doors, even if vandals repeatedly broke in afterward.
Ultimately, Hudson agreed with the city’s proposed penalties and issued the fines on August 25.
In response, GFI filed a lawsuit asking Denver District Court Judge Mark Bailey to nullify the fines. Jonathan Pray and Codi Cox of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck in Denver represent GFI in the case.
Through their attorneys, GFI declined to discuss specific plans for 1840 Grant. Spiegelman told Hudson over the summer that GFI intends either to redevelop the site or sell it to a party who can.
GFI has also signed a letter of intent with a local group specializing in smaller-scale development to sell the cathedral building, but closing is on hold while they work to establish the right economic incentive structure.
John Deffenbaugh of Historic Denver says his organization has reached out to both GFI and the city to facilitate discussions aimed at identifying a long-term, sustainable solution for 1840 Grant.
“This building is architecturally significant, it is culturally significant, it is beautiful, and it is much loved by the local community,” Deffenbaugh said. “There is absolutely no reason why, with a bit of effort and foresight, this building cannot be brought back into meaningful use.”
https://www.denverpost.com/2025/09/25/mother-teresa-denver-hospice-derelict-cathedral-high-school/