Property insurance costs should drop next year in Denver because the city fire department received a top rating during a recent audit, Chief Eric Tade said.

The Denver Fire Department scored a “1” during the audit conducted by ISO Mitigation, Tade said. The audit evaluated everything from the department’s training program to water supply to emergency communications. The rating is then used by insurance underwriters to set commercial and residential rates in a city.

Typically, a top rating results in a 5 percent reduction in the cost of residential and commercial property insurance, Tade said. If property owners don’t receive a direct discount, the new rating should negate any other increases, he said.

The Denver FD has achieved the distinction of being awarded a Class
1 Public Protection Classification rating by @ISO_Mitigation, who evaluates municipal fire protection efforts in communities throughout the US. We are extremely proud of this tremendous accomplishment! pic.twitter.com/..

A local real estate company’s bet on defunct Denver-area off-track betting and entertainment center Red and Jerry’s paid off last month when it sold the renovated building for nearly double what it bought it for last year.

Cadence Capital Investments sold the 102,000-square-foot building located just off South Santa Fe Drive at West Oxford Avenue for $14.8 million on April 20, according to a news release from the sale’s broker, CBRE. The Greenwood Village-based company bought the space, occupied for 22 years by an at-times raucous sports betting room and bar and more family-friendly arcade, for $7.5 million in 2017, days after Red & Jerry’s owners folded their hand there. Declines in the live animal racing and arcade industries helped bring on the business’s demise, owners said.

Last month’s buyer, California-based LBA Realty, takes on the building and a tenant with a long-term lease. Ferguson Enterprises, a plumbing, HVAC and industrial products wholesaler, now operates a warehouse ..

The days of buying a home in the Denver metro area for under $300,000 are all but gone.

Just 1 percent of the homes started in metro Denver in the first quarter were priced below $300,000, down from 3 percent in the first quarter of 2017, according to Metrostudy, which tracks home construction in the region and other big cities. The numbers include new single-family homes, townhomes and condominiums.

And it isn’t because construction is taking a breather. Builders are ramping up this year, with home starts 14 percent higher in the first quarter than they were a year earlier. That marks the second consecutive quarter of double-digit gains, according to Metrostudy.

At an annualized rate, home starts are running above 12,000 for the first time since 2007. But much of what is being built skews above the half-million-dollar mark. Starts on homes priced below $299,999, already low, have dropped by two-thirds the past year.

Only 22 percent of the new homes started in the first three month..

The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless is not giving up in its efforts to turn 59 acres of federal property in Lakewood into a housing community for the homeless.

On Thursday, the organization filed a motion in federal court for a restraining order and preliminary injunction to stop the sale of the property at 6th Avenue and Simms Street via public auction. The motions follow a lawsuit, filed earlier this week, that demands the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services re-evaluate the coalition’s financing plan for its 500-unit homeless housing project.

HHS rejected the plan in March.

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