A Catholic-run soup kitchen in Aurora that provides hot lunches to approximately 150 people a day may have to shut down if the owner of the building in which it has operated for three decades sells the property.
While that is a daunting prospect on its own, there is a complicating factor in the mix. The landlord for Friends of St. Andrew’s hospitality center at Colfax Avenue and Dallas Street is not just any landlord — it’s Regis University, Denver’s 141-year-old Jesuit Catholic institution of higher learning.
The result is an internecine, and somewhat awkward, dispute that pits two Catholic institutions — Regis and Queen of Peace Catholic Parish in Aurora — against each other, while raising soul-searching questions about mission and purpose in a faith community with half a million adherents in metro Denver.
Queen of Peace runs the Friends of St. Andrew’s program with 80 volunteers and a commissary kitchen and food pantry. It also provides an address for those without a home to get their mail.
“Regis University and Queen of Peace both serve the people of God, and both have fiduciary duties to their donors,” said Erika Hollis, vice president and general counsel for Regis. “Regis University has the utmost respect for the good work of the Queen of Peace hospitality center.”
That said, the school finds itself on the cusp of selling off the 6,000-square-foot building at 1525 Dallas St., the result of a directive from the building’s former owner, Ralph Friend, an Aurora businessman who deeded the property to Regis upon his death in 2016 with the condition that it be sold to fund scholarships.
“The estate explicitly directed that the property was to be sold to establish an endowed scholarship fund for deserving students,” Hollis said. “Regis University has a fiduciary obligation to honor its donors’ wishes.”
Hollis said the university spent months trying to arrive at an agreeable below-market price with Queen of Peace to buy the building, on which the church had the right of first refusal. But the right price couldn’t be reached, she said. In April, Regis listed the property, which includes the empty lot next door, for $650,000.
The low-slung, bleach-white building that decades ago housed Aurora’s police and fire departments, courts and jail before Friend turned it into a furniture store, is pitched as a “retail development opportunity” just blocks away from “desirable Stanley Marketplace,” according to a sales flyer.
But Queen of Peace’s pastor, Father Felix Medina-Algaba, said the building’s higher purpose of assisting a poor and homeless population in the heart of Aurora should carry significant weight when it comes to deciding its future.
“We need to put people before financial needs,” he said. “It’s a very needed ministry.”
The pastor said his church made a “fair offer” for the Friend building, “especially considering that the facility is in need of major structural repairs.” Neither Queen of Peace Catholic Parish nor Regis University would disclose the offer price.
Siobhan Latimer, who has overseen the soup kitchen for two years, pointed with trepidation this week to a Realtor lock box hanging on the handle of the backdoor. It serves as a daily reminder that Friends of St. Andrew, which serves about 27,000 people annually, could get its walking papers any day.
“The building is for sale, and we are tenants,” Latimer said. “We would like to stay as long as we can. If it was to sell, we would need a home to continue the ministry. We would want to move fairly close to where we are.”
The director of Aurora’s homelessness program, Shelley McKittrick, said there is no doubt the hospitality center plays a vital role in the demographically and ethnically diverse city.
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“We, as a city, are supportive of the mission of Friends of St. Andrew and want to see their work continue,” she said. “If and when the city is asked for help, we can explore in what ways we can be supportive, such as helping to identify specific properties for them to consider.”
But finding an alternate location that isn’t far away from people the facility currently serves, many of whom don’t own cars, in a real estate market where property prices have been climbing without pause, may require some divine intervention.
“We know that God will provide,” Medina-Algaba said.
Whether that takes the form of further negotiations with Regis or an affordable new place to set up shop, Medina-Algaba is resolute that the services provided by Friends of St. Andrew won’t dry up for good.
“We are going to be there for the people who need us and where we have been serving for 31 years,” he said. “We are not going to give up. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Updated July 20, 2018 at 4:47 p.m. Because of a reporting error, the photos accompanying this story have been updated to reflect the correct name of the soup kitchen as Friends of St. Andrew.
