A trial that kicked off Tuesday will determine whether a local architectural firm is to blame for\u00a0project delays\u00a0at an apartment building in Denver\u2019s RiNo neighborhood or whether it is being scapegoated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis project was delayed partly, if not entirely, due to the design team\u2019s errors,\u201d Brock Fleming, a part-owner of Flora with Belay Development, testified Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Flora, at 3500 Chestnut Place, has 92 apartments and 15,000 square feet of commercial space. Its developers initially imagined it as a condo building but they\u00a0pivoted to apartments\u00a0before breaking ground in 2021 when faced with pandemic-era delays and uncertainty.<\/p>\n
Flora\u2019s development team was Edee Anesi, her father Greg Anesi, Fleming and the food hall creator Brad Arguello. After several setbacks, Flora opened in the spring of 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an apartment building that is at the top of or near the top of the Denver market,\u201d Jonathan Pray, an attorney for Flora\u2019s developers, said during opening arguments Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Between 2018 and 2023, when it left the project, Flora was designed by Studio Completiva, a firm in RiNo whose other projects include the Great Hall at Denver International Airport.<\/p>\n
\u201cStudio C was faced with the choice of continuing to work for free or walk off the job, and continuing to work for free would have resulted in bankruptcy. Yong Cho will testify to that financial reality,\u201d Daniel Woodward, an attorney for the studio, said of its principal.<\/p>\n
\u201cStudio C and its consultants acted within their standards of care throughout the life of this project, despite dealing with difficult circumstances and with difficult owners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flora\u2019s owners are seeking $3.6 million from Studio Completiva, which includes payments the development team made under protest and additional costs they say were incurred as a result of design flaws.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe architect walked off the job,\u201d Pray said of the defendant, \u201cand abandoned this project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Studio Completiva is seeking $130,000 for work it claims it\u00a0was never paid for.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe owners actually made voluntary decisions to incur additional costs throughout the course of the project and then, only after Studio C began demanding payment, did the owners say, \u2018Well, we incurred those costs due to some error on your part,\u2019\u201d Woodward said.<\/p>\n
The opening day\u2019s testimony centered around Fleming, who owns less than 1% of Flora but acted as the owners\u2019 representative during its development. Throughout the morning and all afternoon, he walked Denver District Judge Bruce Jones through the development team\u2019s decision to pivot from condos to apartments and the work of Studio Completiva.<\/p>\n
\u201cYong was the principal of the company, they have a lot of projects, he wears a lot of hats for Studio Completiva, and his attention fell off within a few months,\u201d he said of Cho.<\/p>\n