The decision of whether or not Tom’s Diner on East Colfax Avenue will become a Denver landmark against its owner’s wishes will be made by the City Council later this month after a committee of councilmembers discussed — but ultimately did not find — ways to reach an amicable solution to the controversy Tuesday.
Whatever decision the Council makes following an Aug. 26 public hearing, Tom Messina, the diner’s owner and namesake, says the restaurant will be ending.
“I’m leaving regardless. Tom’s Diner is done,” Messina said at a meeting Tuesday’s of the City Council’s land use, transportation and infrastructure committee.
Messina has a deal in place to sell the diner and surrounding parking lot at 601 E. Colfax to Greenwood Village-based Alberta Development Partners for $4.8 million. The company, which intends to raze the diner and build an eight-story apartment building in its place, filed paperwork seeking nonhistoric status for the building in May.
Five Denver residents, with support of a Gofundme fundraising campaign, 670 petition signatures and preservation-focused nonprofit Historic Denver, submitted a landmark application in June against Messina’s wishes. One of those applicants, Tadem Bar owner Jessica Caouette, spoke Tuesday, responding to questions from Councilmember Kendra Black on why she felt comfortable pursuing something that essentially takes away’s Messina’s property rights.
EDITORIAL: Denver City Council should refuse to make Tom’s Diner a landmark against the owner’s wishes
“We really think, as we said in the application, that this building is historically significant to Denver and especially to Colfax,” Caouette said. “Being someone who has always loved Colfax, who basically grew up on Colfax, it’s valuable to me as a building.”
After the Denver Landmark Preservation Commission voted unanimously to support landmarking the 52-year-old Googie style building last month, the committee on Tuesday had two options: forward the issue on to the entire Council or postpone the process to a specific date in the future.
Councilmember Candi CdeBaca sought to find middle ground between allowing for the demolition of the building — one of the few remaining buildings that once housed a location of Denver’s White Spot diner chain — and forcing Messina to back out of deal he has repeatedly said is key to his retirement.
City staff members on Tuesday said the process can be paused if Messina, the landmark applicants and the city’s landmark preservation commission all agree to take a break. Right now the process is happening under a strict deadline imposed by city’s landmark ordinance. If the Council does not make a decision by Aug. 31, nonhistoric status is automatically conferred on the building and the demolition can proceed.
CdeBaca asked Messina if he would be amenable to ” a pause to have a real conversation without the imposed timelines of the landmarking process.”
He replied the process has already been stressful for him and he did not want to risk the agreement he has in place with Alberta.
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“Saving this building presents a lot of challenges,” he said. “I don’t want to lose what I have on what-ifs.”
The issue will now be taken up at Aug. 26’s Council meeting.
The Tom’s Diner case is one of three landmark applications filed on buildings against the wishes of their owners in the past few months in Denver. The city’s planning and community development staff are working on updates to the landmark ordinance that would extend the review period from three weeks to 60 days and require a city-mediated meeting between property owners and residents. That update could be up for City Council approval next month.
