A small office complex in the Denver Tech Center has been placed into receivership following a loan default, and its owner expects the lender to take the building.
“The Colorado office market is a joke. It is beyond bad,” said Pat Melton, director of leasing for the Canadian firm Melcor.
In 2016, Melcor paid $16.85 million for The Offices at the Promenade, a 132,000-square-foot complex at 7935 and 7995 E. Prentice Ave. in Greenwood Village.
Two years later, records show, the company took out a $10.6 million loan on the property from Genworth Life Insurance Co. that it needed to pay off by the end of June 2025. But the company did not do that and still couldn’t pay when Genworth gave it three extra months.
That’s according to GLIC Real Estate Holding, a subsidiary of Genworth that was assigned the loan last month.
GLIC says Melcor owed $9 million on the loan as of Jan. 28, with interest continuing to accrue at the default rate of 9.9% annually.
In a Feb. 5 lawsuit, GLIC asked the court to appoint Trigild IVL LLC as receiver to oversee the property. Arapahoe County District Judge Joseph Riley Whitfield signed off on the request Feb. 9.
Melton, the Melcor executive, said the Denver-area office market is way worse than in Phoenix, Arizona, the other U.S. market where Melcor owns office space.
“Things are healthy in Phoenix,” he said.
In Colorado, leasing demand has “gone way down,” Melton said.
“So much vacancy, and costs are so high,” Melton said of the market. “And so many brokers with their hands out for money.”
Melton said his firm tried to make a deal with the Offices at the Promenade lender, but when it was rejected, “we basically just said, ‘Take it.’”
It may not be the only Colorado building that Melcor loses. Melton said it’s “highly likely that we’re going to be in the same position at Syracuse,” referring to the 83,000-square-foot Syracuse Hill building at 6021 S. Syracuse Way in Greenwood Village.
“I think that market’s a lost cause,” he said of the Denver office market. “We kind of gave up on it.”
Melcor also owns the office complex at 6, 8 and 10 Inverness Court East in unincorporated Arapahoe County.
The owner of a renovated theater along South Broadway is back on good terms with its lender.
Sonquist LLC, which owns the Jewel Theater at 1912 S. Broadway in Denver, exited bankruptcy Feb. 6.
The entity managed by real estate attorney Doug Norberg and business partner Paul Yaft filed for Chapter 11 on Jan. 23 to prevent the building’s lender, MidWestOne Bank, from foreclosing.
MidWestOne, which took over the building’s $2.3 million loan when it acquired Bank of Denver in 2024, withdrew its foreclosure effort Feb. 3, records show.
“All issues and litigation have been fully resolved,” Norberg and Yaft said in a statement. “On the Jewel, we were navigating occupancy-related delays with the City that required additional time and capital and we took the steps we needed to preserve the property and create runway.”
Norberg previously said the pair skipped mortgage payments so they’d have cash to install a sprinkler system the city mandated.
The Jewel Theater was built as a cinema in 1926. By the 1970s, it was showing pornographic films. In the 1990s, a climbing gym moved in and operated for 25 years before closing in early 2018. Norberg and Yates bought the building for $1.6 million that December and sought to renovate it to its former glory.
“Interest in the property has been strong, and we are actively entertaining lease proposals from operators who recognize its uniqueness, visibility and viability,” the pair said.
The former Blake Street Tavern building in LoDo has a new owner.
Denver-based Sidford Capital purchased the in-default loan for the 53,000-square-foot building at 2301 Blake St. in Denver, then took ownership through a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure last week, according to public records.
The records indicate Sidford paid $7.5 million. The company took out a $6 million loan from MidFirst Bank.
Sidford Principal Dan Grooters said the building is 66% leased to International Workplace Group (formerly Regus), which operates its Spaces coworking concept there. The remainder, formerly home to the Blake Street Tavern sports bar, which closed in 2023 after 20 years, is vacant.
The 1.2-acre property also includes two parking lots.
Sidford took ownership from Seattle-based Urban Renaissance Group, which purchased the property in July 2016 for $21.2 million, records show.
In October 2016, records show, URG took out a $12.5 million loan from Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada that was set to mature in November 2026. But in October of this year, with $10.3 million still owed, the loan “went nonperforming as a result of a payment default,” according to a JLL listing.
URG no longer has any Denver holdings. This year, the company surrendered 2399 Blake St. to a lender, lost LoDo’s Market Center to foreclosure and sold Fox31’s broadcast building at 100 E. Speer Blvd. to the station’s parent company. The company also sold a Broomfield office building at a steep loss in November.
Sidford, meanwhile, also did a deal in Denver’s Athmar Park neighborhood last week, selling the fully leased 59,500-square-foot Athmar Park Shopping Center at 1901 W. Mississippi Ave. for $8.2 million.
Grooters said Sidford renovated the center after buying it in January 2024 for $4.6 million and brought in Planet Fitness as an anchor tenant. The company also parceled off a portion of the property’s parking lot, selling it separately for $400,000.
Mike and Leslie McCabe usually focus their energy on remodeling homes in Cherry Hills Village.
But the Scandinavian-design home at 950 S. Steele St. in Denver’s Belcaro neighborhood caught their attention.
The large home on a nearly half-acre lot felt cold and run down, but the McCabes believed they could make better use of its clean, straight lines and large windows.
“It needed the love it deserved,” Mike McCabe said.
In February, the couple bought it for $4.4 million and got to work, transforming the 9,500-square-foot mansion into what they’ve dubbed the Golden Hour Haus.
Now, they’re selling it. Mike McCabe, who works for The Agency-Denver, listed it for $8.8 million.
(Courtesy Just Pended)
The backyard at 950 S. Steele St. in Denver. (Courtesy Just Pended)
The McCabes, through their company, McCabe Ln. Homes, fully remodeled the mansion constructed in 2007.
“We wanted to create a home that felt organic and modern, seamlessly blending inside and outside. Our inspiration came from a trip to Tulum (Mexico), and the ideas just flowed from there,” he said.
The result is a space that boosts indoor-outdoor flow by maximizing the home’s natural light with floor-to-ceiling windows. It also features Austin White limestone both inside and out, which gives the house a natural Colorado feel that’s more modern, Mike McCabe said.
The goal: Create a high-end home that blends amenities with functionality.
(Courtesy Just Pended)
The backyard at 950 S. Steele St. in Denver. (Courtesy Just Pended)
The main floor centerpiece is a designer kitchen featuring a 17-foot mitered Taj Mahal island, complemented by walnut cabinetry and paneled appliances. There’s also a secondary cooking area equipped with top-of-the-line appliances.
“We focused on creating an aesthetically pleasing kitchen in the front while hiding the messiness in the scullery behind,” Mike McCabe said.
The five-bedroom, five-bath home also has a lower-level space that features walnut-paneled walls, a gym, a cold plunge and a sauna.
The primary suite on the second floor features a custom closet and a spa-like bathroom with a free-standing solid travertine tub, a steam shower and dual vanities. The upstairs also features a loft, three bedrooms, two full baths and laundry.
(Courtesy Just Pended)
The home’s secondary cooking area. (Courtesy Just Pended)
Outside, there’s a new pool and hot tub, an outdoor kitchen and a patio with a fire pit.
The McCabes also kept and updated the home’s original putting green and added an epoxy floor to the seven-car garage.
The result is a home that’s big and spacious without feeling cavernous, Mike McCabe said. The design feels more like what you’d find in Los Angeles or Miami.
“We try to push our design beyond what Colorado normally sees,” he said. “It’s one of a kind.”
On Feb. 14, 2022, a Starbucks manager pulled Michaela Sellaro aside for a meeting.
Just a few weeks earlier, Sellaro and a group of her fellow baristas at the coffee shop at 2975 East Colfax Ave. in Denver informed the company’s CEO that they planned to organize a union.
In the early afternoon, at a table by the windows, the store and district managers sat Sellaro down for a chat. The message, though light and breezy, was clear: “You know Starbucks’ stance is that we don’t need a union to represent our partners,” Kaylin Driscoll, the district manager, told Sellaro, according to a recording reviewed by The Denver Post.
Relationships with leadership will degrade if employees vote to organize, the managers told her. Promotions could be nixed. Benefits might change.
“The dynamic of having those conversations will change with a union,” said Ariel Rodriguez, the store’s manager, in the recording. “I have no personal desire to be part of a store that has to work through a union to have those conversations with you. I have zero interest in that.”
The East Colfax store, which the company has since closed, represents one of 18 Starbucks cafes in Colorado that have unionized since 2022, despite the Seattle-based coffee giant’s well-documented union-busting activity. What started with one unionized store in Buffalo, New York, in 2021 has blossomed into a nationwide movement encompassing 640 locations and thousands of workers around the United States.
Union supporter Pete DeMay of Chicago chants into a bullhorn along with other picketers during a labor organizing action at the Starbucks location at 2975 E. Colfax Ave. in Denver on Friday, March 11, 2022. (Photo by Eric Lutzens/The Denver Post)
Starbucks has nearly 18,300 locations, company-operated and licensed, across the U.S. and Canada. So far, despite the rapid growth in organizing, fewer than 4% of Starbucks workers are employed in unionized stores.
Starbucks has fought these efforts tooth and nail along the way. The National Labor Relations Board, which regulates private sector union activity in the U.S., has found the company illegally fired workers in response to organizing, closed stores because of union votes and engaged in widespread unfair labor practices designed to quash workers’ efforts.
The coffee conglomerate is the biggest violator of labor law in modern history, according to Starbucks Workers United, the national union representing company workers. The NLRB and its judges have found Starbucks has committed more than 500 labor law violations, the union says. Workers have filed more than 1,000 unfair labor practice charges, including more than 125 since January. More than 700 unresolved charges remain.
Despite the hundreds of union votes over the past four years, baristas are still working without a contract. This month, 92% of union workers voted to authorize an open-ended unfair labor practices strike ahead of the holiday season. The vote comes after six months of Starbucks “refusing to offer new proposals to address workers’ demands for better staffing, higher pay and a resolution of hundreds of unfair labor practice charges,” the union said in a news release.
On Nov. 13, more than 1,000 workers — from 65 stores in more than 40 cities, including Colorado Springs and Lafayette — walked off the job. The union said it was “prepared to continue escalating” its strikes if the company failed to deliver a new contract.
“Union baristas mean business and are ready to do whatever it takes to win a fair contract and end Starbucks’ unfair labor practices,” said Michelle Eisen, a Starbucks Workers United spokesperson and 15-year veteran barista. “We want Starbucks to succeed, but turning the company around and bringing customers back begins with listening to and supporting the baristas who are responsible for the Starbucks experience.
“If Starbucks keeps stonewalling, they should expect to see their business grind to a halt. The ball is in Starbucks’ court.”
The union’s push comes amid a wave of public support for organizing efforts. More than two-thirds of American adults approve of labor unions, according to Gallup polling, a level last reached in the 1950s and early 1960s. Support remains especially strong among young people — a demographic common for Starbucks baristas.
Starbucks representatives declined an interview request for this story. Sara Kelly, Starbucks’ chief partner officer, told employees in a letter this month that the company had bargained in good faith with the union, reaching more than 30 tentative agreements on full contract articles.
“Our commitment to bargaining hasn’t changed,” Kelly wrote. “Workers United walked away from the table, but if they are ready to come back, we’re ready to talk. We believe we can move quickly to a reasonable deal.”
Starbucks, she said, remains the best job in retail, paying, on average, $30 per hour for hourly workers once benefits are factored in.
The first Colorado union shop
But employees at Colorado’s first unionized cafe quickly learned the extent to which Starbucks would go to dissuade organizing efforts.
Harris didn’t know much about labor organizing, but she was intrigued. She and her colleagues were sick of the low compensation, of underscheduling and understaffing, and of not learning their weekly schedules until the night before.
Harris connected with the Buffalo workers over Twitter, and the resulting conversations helped launch the first Starbucks union efforts in Colorado.
Many of her colleagues were scared. One quickly told management about the plans.
Within a week, a rarely seen district manager suddenly showed up at the store, Harris said. Management organized an hour-long meeting about how the union was a bad idea, she said.
“They laid it on thick,” Harris said.
The day the workers officially filed with the NLRB, the Marshall fire broke out in Boulder County. As the blaze raged in Superior and Louisville, the Starbucks employees continued to work. Several staffers lost their own homes or were forced to evacuate.
Harris said she got a call that night from her manager, asking if she was OK. Then she said she was told to be at work first thing the next morning.
“It was a total exploitation of us,” Harris said.
As the vote neared, Starbucks amped up its anti-union activity, she said. Management initiated more two-on-one meetings with staff members. For many of the teenage baristas, this represented one of their first jobs. And here leadership was telling them that they wouldn’t be able to transfer stores or enjoy the perks that nonunion employees would receive, such as credit card tips.
Len Harris fires up the crowd during a rally at Trident Booksellers and Cafe in Boulder on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Harris helped to organize the first unionized Starbucks in Colorado, in Superior, before she was fired. (Matthew Jonas/Boulder Daily Camera)
“The individual intimidation was infuriating beyond belief,” Harris said. “I was sick to my stomach that they were taking advantage of these younger workers to terrify them.”
An executive flew in from Seattle and observed staff at work for weeks, Harris said. Management started cutting workers’ hours.
In April 2022, 12 of the 14 employees at the Superior location voted in favor of forming the union. The company, though, refused to negotiate with the newly formed body. So they went on strike in November, shutting down the store for the entire day.
The following day, Starbucks fired Harris, citing a policy about handling cash that she said she had never heard of. An administrative law judge with the NLRB later found the company had illegally fired Harris based on her union activity. She’s still waiting for tens of thousands of dollars in court-ordered back pay.
“I feel like I’ve gotten a peek behind the curtain to the levels of depravity that the company will sink to to take advantage of their employees,” she said.
The Starbucks playbook
The tactics Starbucks used to try to quash worker organizing in Superior are part of the playbook deployed by company leadership across Colorado and the rest of the country, according to interviews, NLRB documents and news reports.
Emily Alice Dinaro started organizing a Starbucks location on Denver’s 16th Street mall in 2022 because of what she saw as management’s failure to protect staff from violence, drug use and volatile customer interactions that were occurring daily.
After the union activity began, management started enforcing existing rules more strictly, while introducing new edicts, she said. Union supporters were singled out, and these new enforcement steps were used to push people out of the store, Dinaro said.
Out of the 26-person staff, 18 workers signed union cards, while 10 of them signed a letter to the Starbucks CEO informing him of their support. But the implementation of these new rules — concerning dress code, cell phone use and cash handling, among other things — forced widespread turnover at the store, Dinaro said. Only five people ended up voting in the union election, which passed successfully.
Dinaro was fired shortly after the vote over what the company said were repeated violations of its attendance and punctuality policy. In 2024, an NLRB judge ruled that Starbucks had fired her illegally due to her union activity.
“When I first started at Starbucks, I thought they were an outstanding, virtuous company,” Dinaro said. “I’ve come to learn they just have an outstanding PR team.”
Starbucks barista Brenna Bellfield holds roses, a symbol of the labor movement, in front of the unionized East Colfax location of Starbucks in Denver, Colorado, on Saturday, Jan. 2022. (Eli Imadali/Special to The Denver Post)
A Starbucks spokesperson, in a statement to The Post this month, said the company “respects our partners’ right to choose through a fair and democratic process, to be represented by a union or not to be represented by a union.”
But federal judges have repeatedly said otherwise. The NLRB, time and again, has found that Starbucks violated the National Labor Relations Act in dealings with employees and their efforts to unionize.
The coffee giant shuttered a store in Colorado Springs in 2022 shortly after its workers voted to unionize and one day before a requested bargaining date. The NLRB, the following year, ordered Starbucks to reopen that store, along with 22 others around the country, because the company had failed to give notice to labor groups.
The NLRB invalidated another union election at a different Colorado Springs location in 2022, finding that management threatened employees through “highly coercive” questioning and “textbook unlawful interrogation.” One manager gave “dire” warnings to workers that unionized stores would not receive certain benefits, such as pay raises.
In several instances, Starbucks violated federal law by firing Colorado workers over pro-union activities, the NLRB found.
The company has employed these same tactics to dissuade union activity across the country.
Federal labor regulators in 2022 asked a court to force Starbucks to stop the company’s “virulent, widespread and well-orchestrated response to employees’ protected organizing efforts.”
Starbucks has refused to divulge how much it has spent on its response to worker organizing campaigns. A federal judge in 2023 ordered the company to comply with a U.S. Department of Labor subpoena seeking expenditure documents for its investigation into the company’s compliance with the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act.
“We will not sit idly by when any company, including Starbucks Corp., defies our request to provide documents to make certain they are complying with the law,” Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda said in a statement at the time.
Howard Schultz, the coffee chain’s billionaire founder, has said the unionization drive felt like an attack on his life’s work. In previous speeches to his employees, he has cast the union as “a group trying to take our people,” an “outside force that’s trying desperately to disrupt our company” and “an adversary that’s threatening the very essence of what (we) believe to be true.”
Sharon Block, a former NLRB member under President Obama and a professor at Harvard Law School, said the coffee giant has used a tried-and-true playbook to stifle union activity. But with weak federal laws and a National Labor Relations Board that has been stunted by the Trump administration, she said, there is little incentive for unscrupulous companies to play by the rules.
“This is a continuing pattern of behavior that sends a signal to the workers that this is a company that will do almost anything to stop them,” she said in an interview.
Starbucks has earned the distinction as a model for unlawful corporate union busting, the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, wrote in a January article. The National Labor Relations Act lacks teeth, making companies more than willing to accept a few slaps on the wrist in order to achieve their broader goals, the report’s author noted.
“There is no mystery as to why corporations like … Starbucks … violate the (law) with such regularity: Crime pays great dividends, as it produces the desired chilling effect on worker organizing and as corporations consider the law’s paltry sanctions an insignificant price to pay to prevent unionization through fear and disruption,” the article states. “The penalties for violating the (law) are utterly meaningless for multibillion-dollar corporations.”
‘No contract, no coffee’
Despite these aggressive union-busting efforts, Starbucks workers continue to organize in Colorado and across the country.
Unionized shops in Colorado have grown to 17 stores, including five in Denver. More than 640 member stores have joined the cause since 2022, making the drive one of the fastest organizing efforts in modern history, according to Starbucks Workers United.
Now workers want a contract.
The union and the company conducted their first bargaining session in April 2024, meeting monthly that summer. In December, however, the union says Starbucks backtracked on the agreed-upon path forward. Starbucks Workers United accused the company of failing to bargain in good faith.
In April, the company rejected Starbucks’ package. The two sides have yet to return to the bargaining table.
Workers voted overwhelmingly on Nov. 5 to authorize an open-ended unfair labor practice strike. The union on Nov. 13 turned Starbucks’ Red Cup Day — an annual free cup giveaway around the holiday season — into a “red cup rebellion,” forcing the closure of nearly all 65 stores where workers were striking.
Starbucks Workers United said they planned to continue escalating the strike, warning that it could be the “largest, longest strike in company history” if the company refuses to deliver a fair contract.
Colorado Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet, along with 24 of their Senate colleagues, wrote a letter this month to Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol, pushing the company to end its “illegal union-busting efforts and negotiate a fair contract with its employees.”
“It is clear that Starbucks has the money to reach a fair agreement with its workers,” the senators wrote. “Starbucks must reverse course from its current posture, resolve its existing labor disputes, and bargain a fair contract in good faith with these employees.”
Jeremy Dixon, right, and Starbucks baristas picket outside a Starbucks store during a rally to demand a new union contract in Colorado Springs on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Kelly, Starbucks’ chief partner officer, said the company already offers the best overall wage and benefits package in retail. She touted strong benefits that include health care, 100% tuition coverage for a four-year college degree and up to 18 weeks of paid family leave. The union, she wrote, is proposing pay increases of 65% immediately and 77% over three years, along with other proposals that would “significantly affect store operations and customer experience.”
“These aren’t serious, evidence-based proposals,” Kelly wrote.
The union, though, says many workers don’t get enough hours to qualify for benefits. Starting wages for baristas, they say, are $15.25 an hour in a majority of states, though Denver’s minimum wage stands at $18.81, requiring higher rates. Barista positions listed on the company’s website start at $17 per hour in Colorado, while shift supervisor roles begin around $21 per hour.
Baristas in Fort Collins and Colorado Springs last month participated in a national wave of pickets as they demanded a fair contract and prepared to strike.
“No contract, no coffee!” workers and their allies shouted as they rallied outside a Starbucks cafe on South College Avenue in Fort Collins. “Respect our rights or expect our strikes!”
Drivers honked their horns in support, while supporters gave thumbs-down reactions to those frequenting the coffee chain.
Three days later, a dozen people picketed outside a cafe on Carmela Grove in Colorado Springs, chanting in call-and-response choruses.
“I’m proud so many other stores are willing to step up with us,” said Blue Taylor, a shift supervisor and strike captain at the store. The 19-year-old watched as the company, during the store’s unionizing drive, spread misinformation about the consequences of organizing and tried to dissuade workers from supporting the cause. It didn’t work.
Elk antlers. Obsidian. Foil from the Apollo 11 spacecraft.
Ben Bosworth has made wedding rings out of them.
“If we can get our hands on the material,” the Conifer resident said, “we can figure it out.”
His jewelry outfit, Honest Hands Ring Co., is having its biggest year since launching in 2018. What started as a garage side gig seven years ago has blossomed into a seven-figure business this year, Bosworth said.
Honest Hands manufactures and ships out of Morrison. Bosworth started with 700 square feet at 4285 S. Eldridge St., which records show he purchased for $275,000 in September 2023.
At that time, Bosworth was making 35 to 40 rings a month, not long after beginning to work full time on Honest Hands.
He bought an additional 1,400 square feet next door in June, paying $550,000, records show. And he’s grown the company from two to six people this year.
Last month, Bosworth said, Honest Hands made 266 rings. He’s aiming to triple Honest Hand’s output and staff size within the next three years.
“I think alternative jewelry and the fact that not everyone has to have a gold ring has just been primarily the thing,” Bosworth said. “In the last 10 to 15 years, it’s starting to become more like you can have a titanium ring, you can have a tungsten ring, you can have a silicone ring.”
About half the business comes from custom orders, where customers can send in anything they want inlaid or fused into a ring, although Bosworth draws the line at human teeth and cremated remains.
The other 50% of orders are for the company’s own line of rings, like ones engraved with the San Juan Mountains or a customer’s fingerprint.
The average ring costs $500, Bosworth said, but ranges from about $200 to $5,000, depending on material.
“The rule of thumb is you have to spend three months’ salary on an engagement ring for your fiancée and then the guy goes on Amazon and buys a $25 tungsten ring or something,” Bosworth said. “I think there’s a really nice place for a business to be in between the two.”
Bosworth and ring-making weren’t a fated couple.
The Michigan native wanted to be a mechanical engineer from a young age. During his time at Michigan State University, he built “super-fast go-karts” and parlayed that into a job with a firm that specialized in racing and military vehicles.
While working there, he started a bicycle business on the side with a friend. He also got married around the same time in 2016, but he didn’t want to deal with the hassle of going out and buying his ring.
“I was also building bikes at the time, so I had a lot of the equipment and I was like, ‘I’ll just build my own ring,’” Bosworth recalled.
He did, posted it to Facebook and got more attention than he was expecting. Friends and family periodically asked him to make jewelry for them, and in 2018, he launched a website and started the Honest Hands brand.
At the same time, Bosworth and his wife moved to Colorado. He worked for the bike maker Guerrilla Gravity, where he was in charge of composites. In March 2023, he left to devote all his attention to Honest Hands.
“My strategy is just slow, sustainable growth. I want to create a good lifestyle for everyone who works here.”
After 18 years of serving seafood, the kitschy, tourist-friendly Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. across from the Colorado Convention Center is now closed and being sued for back rent.
The restaurant at 1437 California St. called it quits last week, according to its landlord.
“Unfortunately, we have permanently closed,” says a sign on the front door, which features its smiling shrimp mascot. “Thank you for allowing us to serve the Denver community.”
The restaurant chain came to Denver in 2006 and planned to stay awhile: It signed a lease for 20 years and eight months, through January 2027. After a build-out, it opened in 2007.
The restaurant’s first struggles came in 2016, when construction of two hotels nearby resulted in fewer customers, according to Kent Cherne, whose father purchased 1437 California St. around 1960. Cherne, whose investment firm owns it now, says he lowered rent as a result.
Cherne also helped the seafood restaurant when the pandemic struck in 2020, when revenue fell in 2024, and when his tenant was struggling again in early 2025, according to a lawsuit that Cherne Investment Co. filed against Bubba Gump and its parent companies Nov. 10.
“From April through November, Bubba Gump was late each month in paying the amounts it owed, and the payments due on Oct. 1 and Nov. 1 have not been received,” according to the lawsuit, which estimates that Cherne reduced rent by $335,000 over 10 years.
Cherne’s firm is suing for October and November rents, along with late fees, taxes, interest and unpaid wastewater fees, according to this week’s lawsuit. It does not list dollar figures.
Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. gets its name from the 1994 film “Forrest Gump,” in which Tom Hanks’ titular character befriends the shrimp-obsessed Benjamin Buford “Bubba” Blue. After Blue dies in combat in Vietnam, Gump eventually opens Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. in his memory.
In 2010, the real-life Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. was purchased by the Landry’s restaurant group out of Texas. Landry’s owner Tilman Fertitta is currently the U.S. ambassador to Italy.
“This location was licensed to the Kelly Group, who ultimately closed the location,” Landry’s Chief Operating Officer Scott Marshall said. “There are no plans to reopen that location.”
The Kelly Group, of California, did not respond to requests for comment. There are now 20 Bubba Gump locations in the United States and 10 more outside the U.S.
Meanwhile, 1437 California St., which is known for its western-facing murals of Teddy Roosevelt and boxing great Jack Dempsey, is up for sale after 65 years with one family.
“If my dad was still alive, he would probably still be pretty attached to it, but that’s not the case with me,” Kent Cherne said. “I recognize the challenges in trying to manage it myself and I think it’s just time to let it go to somebody else and move on, try to find another use for it.”
At 6,250 square feet across two floors and a basement, it is one large restaurant space.
“Quite frankly, with the times that we are in now, I don’t see anybody rushing to put a restaurant in downtown, so I’m not holding out a lot of hope.” Cherne said.
More likely, it will be converted into something else or torn down, its owner added. Denver’s Landmark Preservation Commission determined last month that it is demolition-eligible, city records show, and Cherne said a teardown “would not bother me.”
“It has served its usefulness to my family. My dad bought it back in about 1960, it was a parking garage, and there have been some other businesses in there since,” its owner recalls.
“Eighteen years,” he said of Bubba Gump. “It was a good run, but every dog has its day, I guess. There are not a whole lot of businesses that are solid and just keep going forever.”
For Pete Marczyk, the decision to open a market downtown was an easy one.
“When you get a phone call from Walter Isenberg, you listen,” the longtime Denver grocer said, referring to the founder and CEO of Denver-based Sage Hospitality as “the Godfather.”
“It was pretty interesting to see the vision through his eyes,” he continued. “And that was a really cool moment for me to be able to sit down with him and be able to hammer that out.”
What came of that months-ago conversation is the fourth location of Marczyk Fine Foods, planned for the Milk Market food hall in LoDo.
Marczyk said the 450-square-foot outpost at 1800 Wazee St. will be a stripped down but “mighty” version of his specialty grocery stores in the Uptown and Hale neighborhoods. It will sell premade entrees, soups, salads and sweets alongside a small selection of grocery items.
“It’s not our whole product mix, but we use sales data and we’ll get a product mix down there, and our customers will teach us what works and what doesn’t,” Marczyk said.
Sage, which manages Milk Market, will staff the spot. The company signed a five-year licensing agreement with Marczyk. Scott Vollmer, general manager of Dairy Block, the development that Milk Market is a part of, said he expects Marczyk to open in early 2026.
“(Marczyk) is a successful local grocery concept that embodies good quality, great service,” said Vollmer, who works for Dairy Block developer McWhinney. “And it fills a void here downtown where you’re missing a lot of the basic grocery sundry items that Marczyk does a great job of curating.”
Milk Market isn’t the first licensing agreement for Marczyk. In 2019, he signed a deal to open a spot in Denver International Airport, which finally opened a year ago after COVID-induced delays.
At Marczyk’s licensed spots, the operator — in this case Sage — buys the food from the grocer, which makes one to two daily deliveries of its fresh bread and prepared foods. Marczyk will continue cooking and shipping out of its 10,000-square-food commissary at 4850 E. 39th Ave. in Park Hill.
Marczyk, who opened his first store in 2002, said he constantly gets approached to open new locations but he needs a very specific set of circumstances to make the numbers work. He said it would cost $7 million to build out a new store, several million more than he paid decades ago.
“It’s really hard to make the math work for a grocer. Everything they say about the grocery business is true, it’s the second oldest profession, (with) prostitution being the first,” he joked. “But it’s a really super competitive space and our direct competitors are two of the largest companies in the world: Amazon and Walmart.”
In an industry where sub-5% margins are common, he views the licensed location as another way to pad his business. Marczyk also said the move helps avoid the red tape and overhead costs of a new build-out.
“This is a way for us to mitigate some risk … and add some incremental sales,” he said. “Because expectations of profitability are so low, if we just add a little it’s a lot for us.
“My managers, their job is to find $50 a day they can add to the bottom line,” he continued. “And that’s a significant percentage of profit that we can add.”
Marczyk opening at Milk Market continues Sage’s new plan to get outside operators in the food hall, which restaurateur Frank Bonanno opened in 2018 and sold to Sage in 2023. Over the summer, Milk Market added Konjo Ethiopian Food, The Lucky Bird fried chicken and YumCha, a noodles and dumplings concept by ChoLon owner Lon Symensma.
Doug McKinnon has sold another of his Cherry Creek gateway corners.
The owner of real estate firm McKinnon & Associates last week sold 55-65 S. Colorado Blvd., two parcels that form the northwest corner of Colorado and Bayaud Avenue, for $3.2 million, according to public records.
The undeveloped site is 0.38 acres, so the deal works out to $191 a square foot.
McKinnon said the local buyer “will be utilizing the G-RO-5 zoning we put in place to develop an office building for his firm’s use on the site.”
The property was purchased by DEG Realestate LLC, an entity formed by Alla Feldman with an office address corresponding to a home within Cherry Creek Country Club. Reached by phone, Feldman declined to comment on the purchase.
No development plans have been submitted to Denver for the site.
The corner lot is one of four on the outskirts of Cherry Creek — all marketed as a redevelopment opportunity — that a McKinnon-led group bought in 2019 for $5.5 million. The other lots were the southwest corner of Colorado and Bayaud and the southwest and northwest corners of Colorado and First Avenue.
McKinnon got the sites rezoned in 2020 after striking an unusually detailed “good neighbor agreement” with surrounding residents. Then, he put “Cherry Creek Gateway” signage up at each of the properties indicating they were for sale.
In 2023, McKinnon sold the southwest corner of Colorado and Bayaud for $1.4 million.
He still owns the corners at Colorado and First. He bought a neighboring parcel there for $1.8 million in 2023, giving him a larger footprint at the intersection.
A former vice president at Colorado-based Arrow Electronics and the CEO of a contractor have been sentenced to federal prison for defrauding Arrow, a global provider of technology services and components, of nearly $2 million.
Michael Vergato, 52, who worked for Arrow, was sentenced to 46 months in prison. Mark Perlstein, 60, was sentenced to 25 months and fined $15,000.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado said Monday that Vergato was convicted on six counts of wire fraud after a six-day trial in May. Perlstein pleaded guilty to wire fraud in June.
The men were jointly ordered to make restitution of $1.94 million. Each will serve three years of supervised release after their prison terms.
Authorities said according to Perlstein’s plea agreement and evidence presented at Vergato’s trial, the two devised a scheme to bill Arrow Electronics, based in Centennial, for performance tuning services. Vergato oversaw performance tuning of Arrow’s Oracle EBS data bases, including work by Perlstein’s company.
Perlstein and Vergato billed the data management company for services purportedly done by a shell company created by Vergato. The company, Oracle Performance Tuning and Optimization, or OPTO, submitted 21 fraudulent contracts and invoices to Arrow for work that was never performed, according to authorities.
Perlstein approved the invoices and wired payments to OPTO.
Nearly $2 million in company funds were funneled to OPTO, authorities said. Perlstein and Vergato divided the proceeds and concealed their involvement by using personal email accounts, other corporate entities, and fake identities.
Vergato used his stepdaughter’s identity to conduct business on behalf of OPTO, according to authorities. Tax records confirmed OPTO paid no salaries and issued no contractor forms.
Vergato kept approximately $874,000 of the $1.94 million, spending it on luxury vehicles, credit card payments, retirement accounts, and rent. Perlstein personally received more than $1 million.
“Corporate fraud of this magnitude undermines confidence in our business community and harms employees, customers, and shareholders alike,” said U.S.Attorney Peter McNeilly. “These sentences send a clear message: executives who abuse their authority for personal gain will be held accountable.”
U.S. District Judge Nina Y. Wang presided over the sentencing. The FBI investigated the case. The prosecution was handled by assistant U.S attorneys Nicole Cassidy, Bradley Giles and Bob Brown.
Eli Cox owns the barstools at My Boy Tony, and now the ground they sit on, too.
“I just want to keep it as something good for the community,” he said.
Cox and business partner Mark Hansen, who owns the backpack brand Topo Designs, purchased the real estate for their bar at 4280 Tennyson St. last week for $1.6 million, according to public records.
No immediate changes are planned. The 1,620-square-foot corner retail building has an outdoor patio and a single apartment upstairs. It traded for $957 per square foot, which Cox said “wasn’t dramatically less” than the appraised value.
Public records show that the two buyers took out a $1.2 million, 25-year loan with a variable interest rate from Alpine Bank. No outside investors are involved in the real estate, Cox said. The bar business has a third partner, John Strieby, who was not part of the property transaction.
The building was sold by Nicole Sullivan, who operated BookBar — a part bookstore, part bar — in the space for about a decade before closing in early 2023. Sullivan bought the building for $685,000 in September 2012, records show.
“When we bought the building, there were bars on all the doors and the windows. The bowling alley was still there, the hardware store was still there, (Tennyson) was very different,” Sullivan said.
The property was originally a Victorian-style home built in 1896. Its retail storefront was later added in 1948, public records show. Sullivan never listed the building for sale, instead going to Cox and Hansen, who had told her they wanted a chance to buy should she ever sell.
“I would have never sold it to a developer,” Sullivan said. “I would be completely heartbroken if it were ever scraped.”
Sullivan, 52, is preparing to move out of state. Last month, she sold her remaining bookstore, The Bookies at 2085 Holly St. in Denver’s Virginia Village neighborhood. Sullivan still owns that store’s real estate, however, as well as a building at 4890 Lowell Blvd. in Berkeley. It houses her nonprofit, BookGive, which gives away used books.
“Books were my window to the greater world. Had it not been for that, I probably would have just stayed in my hometown and would’ve ended up with a smaller life,” said Sullivan, who hails from a small town in Missouri. “All the reading I did opened me up to all the other cultures that were out there.”
For Cox, meanwhile, this building is another feather in his Tennyson real estate cap. The entrepreneur founded clothing store Berkeley Supply in 2012, situated two blocks up the street from My Boy Tony. He and partners purchased the liquor store at 4340 Tennyson St. and its real estate in the fall of 2022. Before these ventures, he worked at another Tennyson eatery, Hops & Pie.
“Without Tennyson Street, I would have nothing, and I want to make sure it stays the way it’s always been and not get crazy corporate,” Cox said.
The Cherry Creek corner that is home to Italian restaurant Cucina Colore has sold, although the buyer has no immediate plans to redevelop it.
“We’ll probably just land bank it for the time being,” said Kevin Beck.
Beck and his wife, acting as Phenomena LLC, paid $9.85 million on Friday for the northwest corner of Third Avenue and St. Paul Street, according to public records.
The building at 3035-3041 E. Third Ave. is about 7,000 square feet and leased to four tenants. Cucina Colore has operated there since 1994 and has multiple years left on its lease, Beck said. The deal also included the parking lot behind the buildings.
The entire site is 0.43 acre, meaning the deal works out to $525 a square foot based on the land. It’s zoned for up to four stories. For comparison, the same-sized Cherry Creek Dance lot four blocks west sold for $7.8 million in April.
“We just think it’s a good long-term investment,” Beck said. “We think there’s a redevelopment opportunity over time.”
Beck, 54, is an executive with Paradice Investment Management, an investment firm that operates in Cherry Creek in a building he and his wife also own. The couple live nearby. Paradice was not involved in last week’s purchase.
The properties were sold by Beall Group LLC and Green City LLC, which had owned them for decades. Mary Beall signed on behalf of both entities.
Large sites remain in demand in Cherry Creek, where office and apartment projects have continued to break ground despite the rise of remote work and high interest rates and construction costs.
“It’s one of the only markets in the country where projects still pencil,” said real estate broker Phil Ruschmeyer of Ruschmeyer Corp., who represented another party that pursued the site
Denver received a concept plan back in 2023 that proposed a four-story office building at the site. Beck wasn’t involved with that proposal.
“I think a lot of people have looked at the site over the years,” Beck said.
This story was originally published by BusinessDen.
Some Apple AirPods wireless headphones can be used as hearing aids with a new software update available in October. It’s a high-profile move that experts applaud, even if they only reach a small portion of the millions of Americans with hearing loss.
An estimated 30 million people — 1 in 8 Americans over the age of 12 — have hearing loss in both ears. Millions would benefit from hearing aids but most have never tried them, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Countless others have tried them, but don’t use them because of cost, poor quality, poor fit, how they look or for other reasons.
Over the past few years, there’s been a push to change that. Two years ago, federal rules changed to allow hearing aids to be sold over-the-counter, a move that many hoped would bring better and cheaper options to patients. And last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved software from Apple that would turn AirPods Pro 2 into hearing aids.
It’s unclear yet whether the rule changed has helped, experts say. But turning AirPods into hearing aids is the kind of creative move advocates had hoped for. Here’s what to know about hearing loss, hearing aids, and Apple’s new option.
Hearing loss can contribute to isolation, dementia, even fall risk
About 15% of Americans report some difficulty hearing. Most people with hearing loss are over 60, but hearing problems don’t only affect older people. One study found men and people living in rural areas are more likely to have hearing loss.
And it has been linked to many health effects beyond the ear. It contributes to isolation, depression and cognitive decline, experts say. It raises dementia risk and rewires the brain. It’s also been linked to an increased risk of falls — a major health concern among older adults.
“Everything we do, all our relationships, whether it’s personal or in our work life, involve hearing conversation,” said Barbara Kelley, executive director of Hearing Loss Association of America. “We’re finding now that the sooner that people can pay attention to their hearing health, the better.”
You don’t need to see a doctor to get a hearing aid
Before the 2022 rule change by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, everyone had to see a doctor and get a prescription for a hearing aid to get one. Now, they’re available without one.
“As more of them are sold, then hopefully the price will go down,” said Elizabeth Stangl, an audiologist at the University of Iowa. “But we haven’t seen a big rush to get them.”
Even buying over-the-counter, a decent hearing aid can easily run you $400 to $500, said Stangl, who researches how well people adjust to using hearing aids. And some of the less expensive options are really just “cheap amplifiers,” lacking the personalized level settings and noise canceling features that really make hearing aids helpful.
How does the Apple AirPods hearing aid feature work?
The hearing aid feature is available with AirPods Pro 2 models, and requires an iPhone or iPad to set it up. It starts with built-in tests that will help users determine if they have hearing loss, set up the feature if they do, and set personalized amplification levels.
The headphones sell for $249 on Apple’s website, and sometimes less from other retailers.
While there are many other earbud-type devices that can function the same way, experts agreed that the AirPods addition is a good one, simply because of the way it could help normalize hearing aids.
“It’s just mainstream,” Kelley said. The ubiquity of AirPods could make people worried about the look of a hearing aid more open to using them.
There may be some drawbacks, though. Fit and comfort during long use might be an issue. And while other hearing aids are built to last through a whole day or more, Stangl said the battery life of the AirPods won’t allow for that. She also noted that wearing earbuds can send a message to others that the person doesn’t want to be disturbed or spoken to.
“But we’re hoping that more people will try it and realize, ‘Yeah, these do help,’” she said.
Tips for buying OTC hearing aids
Stangl suggests people do plenty of research before buying. She said Facebook and Reddit forums can be especially helpful in vetting devices. The websites Hearing Tracker and Soundly also have reliable reviews and resources for selecting a hearing aid, she said.
Look for devices that allow you to adjust different pitches. Most people with hearing loss have the hardest time hearing higher pitches, so find a device that can adjust amplification across frequencies.
To avoid the piercing whistle of feedback, buy a device that has a “feedback manager.” Fit is critical, but beware: it might not necessarily be the one that’s initially the most comfortable, so take your time.
Can you use your FSA or HSA money to buy OTC hearing aids — or even AirPods?
Pre-tax money stashed away in flexible spending accounts or health savings accounts can be used to buy hearing aids, including ones sold over the counter.
Does this mean you can score a new set of AirPods Pro2 with pre-tax money? Experts say it’s a gray area that hasn’t been tested yet, so be wary. You may even need a letter of medical necessity. It’s best to check with an accountant before you try it.
Your smartphone can help you even without hearing aids
Even if you can’t afford the latest and greatest tech, your smartphone can be a tool to protect and improve your hearing.
Most phones can now turn speech into text, which can help facilitate conversations. iPhone’s “Live Listen” feature turns your phone into an amplifying microphone that can beam your dinner date’s voice right to your ear even if you’re in a noisy restaurant.
There are also many apps and websites that can help beyond hearing aids. Some apps can vibrate your phone if an alarm is going off or the dog is barking. The University of Iowa gathers training resources through its Resource Center for Auditory Training. Free apps like the World Health Organization’s “hearWHO” offer hearing tests and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Sound Level Meter App lets you measure if noise levels are dangerous.
“The majority of people own smart phones and don’t realize all that their phone can do, including functioning as a good amplifier for people with mild to moderate hearing loss,” said Catherine Palmer, director of audiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and former president of the American Academy of Audiology. “This has made hearing care accessible to many.”
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Charlie Blackmon, who retired last month after a 14-year career with the Colorado Rockies, has moved back to Georgia and listed his home in Denver’s Belcaro neighborhood.
Blackmon lives full time in Atlanta with his wife, Ashley, and their two young children, so he’s selling his home in a gated community near Cherry Creek.
He listed the 5,500-square-foot, four-bedroom, five-bath home with a three-car tandem garage on Sept. 11 for $4.3 million. Justin Joseph and Deviree Vallejo with LIV Sotheby’s International Realty have the listing.
Blackmon purchased the home, constructed in 2014, for $2.8 million in June 2018.
“We’ve loved the outdoor living space and think it’s among the best features of our home. The home gets great sunlight which lends itself to a dip in the pool or just enjoying the patio,” said Blackmon, who answered questions about the home in writing.
“We’ve also enjoyed many cool Denver evenings hanging around the custom gas firepit with friends. When the weather is great, we also open the sliding doors that merge the outdoor TV area with the living room,” he said. “We’ve loved it all.”
The home features a chef’s kitchen with Wolf and Sub-Zero appliances, a built-in Miele coffee maker, and a large marble island and ample storage. The second floor includes three large bedrooms, each with an ensuite bathroom.
Joseph called the home a peaceful enclave in the city’s heart and an entertainer’s paradise.
After Blackmon purchased the home, he improved the outdoor space by adding performance tile and inlaid turf that extends around the home’s side for a dog run, Joseph said.
Living in a gated community was helpful for a local celebrity.
“When we purchased the home, we really liked how the community is a protected enclave,” Blackmon said.
Blackmon, a second-round draft pick, overcame an injury-plagued start to finish his career hitting .293 with 227 home runs and 1,805 hits. He trails only Rockies first baseman Todd Helton in games played, runs, hits, doubles, extra-base hits and total bases, and leads the Rockies with 68 triples.
With summer officially over, it’s back to business (or school) for many people, which can mean more time writing longer things, especially on the go. The smartphone has replaced the laptop for many tasks, but when it comes to text input, tapping away on tiny onscreen keys might make you wish you had hauled along the computer just for its keyboard. Thankfully, your phone includes several features to make text entry much easier. Here are a few suggestions.
Visit your settings
Thanks to predictive text prompts, automatic punctuation and other shortcuts (like pressing vowel keys to see the pop-up menu of accent marks), typing on small glass rectangles isn’t as awkward as it used to be. To find out what features are available for your phone, start with its Settings app.
On an iPhone, tap General and then Keyboard.
For many Android phones, tap System, Keyboard, On-screen Keyboard and then Gboard (often the default app). Galaxy models typically offer the Samsung Keyboard with similar options.
You should see choices for spell-check, text correction — yes, Apple’s infamous Auto-Correction has gotten better — and other aids. For example, both the Apple iOS keyboard and the Google Gboard (which has an iOS version, too) can display a compact keyboard for easier single-handed input.
On the Gboard keyboard, press and hold the comma key for a shortcut into the settings — or tap the four-squares icon on the far left and select the One-Handed button; the same menu lets you resize or “float” the keyboard around the screen if you prefer.
Password-manager tools prevent mistyped logins, and fewer taps may help to prevent errors elsewhere. With tools like Slide to Type from Apple and Glide Typing by Google, you can drag your finger around the keyboard and the software guesses the word you want; note that the results may vary.
The keyboard can move the text-insertion cursor, too. On an iPhone, press and hold the space bar until the keyboard dims, and then drag your finger to reposition the cursor on the screen. For the Google Gboard, you can move the cursor by sliding a finger along the space bar if the “gesture cursor control” is enabled in the Glide Typing settings.
Apple and Google include keyboard layouts for typing in languages other than English or inserting emojis. You can add third-party keyboard apps, but beware of software from unfamiliar companies that could pose security risks.
Add hardware
If you have a lot of text to enter, pairing your iPhone or Android phone with an external Bluetooth keyboard (including the Magic Keyboard made by Apple) lets you switch to traditional typing hardware. You can even use navigational buttons and shortcuts with an iPhone by going to Settings, Accessibility and Keyboards and enabling the Full Keyboard Access feature.
If you don’t want to haul a full keyboard around, consider a folding model, as it can fit easily in a jacket pocket but expand into something resembling a full-size set of keys.
Traveling keyboards, which typically fold up into two or three sections when not in use, range in price from about $25 to $80 depending on the size and features.
Speak your mind
Speech-to-text technology that converts the spoken word into editable type on the screen has been around for decades and has only become more accurate as the software has improved. Many apps (including virtual assistants) can take dictation. The Apple Notes app in iOS 18 can now directly record a live audio file and transcribe it.
To use the feature on an iPhone, open Settings, select General and then Keyboard, and turn on Enable Dictation. The Auto-Punctuation option automatically inserts commands, periods and question marks as you talk, but Apple’s site has a full list of dictation commands for editing text and inserting emoji characters.
On Android phones using the Gboard keyboard, open the Settings app, go to System, select Keyboard and make sure Google Voice Typing is enabled. When you tap the microphone icon, you can start speaking or select the Info icon (an encircled “i”) to see the list of voice commands that Gboard understands, including in the Google Docs word processor. As with most dictation apps, you must call out punctation by name, like “question mark” or “new paragraph,” and other formatting.
Dictation can be helpful for quickly transcribing a lot of words, but it may not be the best method for, say, a crowded coffee shop or composing a confidential memo within earshot of co-workers. Some dictation requests are uploaded to the internet for processing and require a network connection.
But no matter how you input your text, be sure to proofread it (or have artificial intelligence do it) before you send it along, as typographical errors do have a way of sneaking in no matter how you get your words on the screen.
The latest iPhones, unveiled by Apple at a marketing event Monday, look virtually identical to last year’s models. But Apple hopes that what’s underneath — new software that brings what it describes as artificial intelligence to the new phones — will persuade people to upgrade.
Apple Intelligence, the company’s new suite of AI services, automates tasks including generating images, rewriting emails and summarizing web articles. Only the iPhone 16s unveiled Monday or last year’s iPhone 15 Pro can run the new software because older models are too slow to handle those tasks, according to the company. The faster iPhone 16 devices start at $800 and will arrive in stores later this month.
But what if I told you there was another way to get the same perks?
Long before Apple introduced Apple Intelligence at a software conference in June, many apps for automatically producing text and images had been widely available. Relying on a technology known as generative AI, which predicts what words and images belong together to write a catchy poem or generate a realistic-looking image of a cat on a windowsill, for instance, these types of services have been trendy for the last two years.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
By downloading a handful of apps, iPhone owners can get similar benefits and hold on to their older devices longer. After I tested dozens of generative AI apps in the last year, here are my recommendations.
Summarizing text
One of Apple Intelligence’s most anticipated features is its ability to take large blocks of text and distill the main points into a few sentences. This capability could be useful for summarizing a lengthy web article or lecture notes.
But there’s already a popular tool for summarizing web articles: Arc Search, a free browser developed by a startup. To test it, I loaded an 8,000-word feature from ProPublica about a chemist who blew the whistle on the manufacturer 3M. When I pinched the screen, the app generated a one-sentence overview of what the article was about, followed by three bullet points summing up the highlights. While the bullet points glossed over important details you would have gotten from reading the full article, I found the summary accurate.
For summarizing notes, the free web app Humata AI has become popular among academic researchers and lawyers. By visiting Humata.ai on a web browser, you can upload a document such as a PDF, and from there, you can type requests in a window to ask a chatbot to summarize the most important points. In response, the chatbot will show a digital copy of the PDF and highlight relevant portions of the text.
Writing tools
Apple Intelligence also includes tools to rewrite text — to make an email sound more professional, for instance. Lots of free apps can handle this task proficiently.
The best known include the ChatGPT chatbot from OpenAI, along with rivals like Gemini from Google and Bing AI from Microsoft — all apps that can be downloaded in the App Store. Just paste text into the app and ask the chatbot to rewrite it in a different tone by typing, for instance, “Make this email sound more personable for a client I’ve known for many years.”
For help with writing, I prefer a lesser-known tool, Wordtune, from the startup AI21 Labs. Its interface, accessible on wordtune.com, is designed like a word processor for composing and editing text. You can type in a paragraph and click on buttons to expand, shorten or rewrite sentences to sound more casual or formal; the app will show a list of rewritten sentences to choose from.
Image generation
Another of Apple Intelligence’s hyped features is its ability to generate fun images, such as an emoji of yourself eating pizza, to send to friends.
Many options for generating images exist, including a tool that most iPhone users are likely to already have: Meta AI, Meta’s free chatbot that is included inside Instagram, WhatsApp and its other apps. In the search bar at the top of Instagram, you can ask the chatbot to conjure images by typing “/imagine” followed by a description.
I typed “/imagine me eating steak.” Meta AI then loaded a tool to take photos of my face from multiple angles. It produced an obviously fake rendering of me salivating over a large, rare steak inside a restaurant.
Other similar tools for typing prompts to generate images include Adobe Firefly, found on firefly.adobe.com, and ChatGPT.
Photo editing
Another new Apple Intelligence tool can automatically remove photo bombers with the tap of a button.
Google has offered a similar editing tool, Magic Eraser, inside its Google Photos photo album app for iPhone and Android users since 2023. Inside Google Photos, select your photo, tap the “edit” button and select the Magic Eraser tool. You can then circle the distracting objects or people you would like to erase.
I used Magic Eraser on a photo of my corgi, Max, in a dog park — to remove a citation form from a police officer for letting Max run off leash without a permit. It replaced the maddening piece of bureaucracy with some pine needles.
NEW YORK — Americans who spend Memorial Day scouting sales online and in stores may find more reasons to celebrate the return of warmer weather. Major retailers are stepping up discounts heading into the summer months, hoping to entice inflation-weary shoppers into opening their wallets.
Target, Walmart and other chains have rolled out price cuts — some permanent, others temporary — with the stated aim of giving their customers some relief. The reductions, which mostly involve groceries, are getting introduced as inflation showed its first sign of easing this year but not enough for consumers who are struggling to pay for basic necessities as well as rent and car insurance.
The latest quarterly earnings reported by Walmart, Macy’s and Ralph Lauren underscored that consumers have not stopped spending. But multiple CE0s, including the heads of McDonald’s, Starbucks and home improvement retailer Home Depot, have observed that people are becoming more price-conscious and choosy. They’re delaying purchases, focusing on store brands compared to typically more expensive national brands, and looking for deals.
“Retailers recognize that unless they pull out some stops on pricing, they are going to have difficulty holding on to the customers they got,” Neil Saunders, managing director of consulting and data analysis firm GlobalData, said. “The consumer really has had enough of inflation, and they’re starting to take action in terms of where they shop, how they shop, the amount they buy.”
While discounts are an everyday tool in retail, Saunders said these aggressive price cuts that cover thousands of items announced by a number of retailers represent a “major shift” in recent strategy. He noted most companies talked about price increases in the past two or three years, and the cut mark the first big “price war” since before inflation started taking hold.
Where can shoppers find lower prices?
Higher-income shoppers looking to save money have helped Walmart maintain strong sales in recent quarters. But earlier this month, the nation’s largest retailer expanded its price rollbacks — temporary discounts that can last a few months — to nearly 7,000 grocery items, a 45% increase. Items include a 28-ounce can of Bush’s baked beans marked down to $2.22, from $2.48, and a 24-pack of 12-ounce Diet Coke priced at $12.78 from $14.28.
Company executives said the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer is seeing more people eating at home versus eating out. Walmart believes its discounts will help the business over the remainder of the year.
“We’re going to lead on price, and we’re going to manage our (profit) margins, and we’re going to be the Walmart that we’ve always been,” CEO Doug McMillon told analysts earlier this month.
Not to be outdone by its closest competitor, Target last week cut prices on 1,500 items and said it planned to make price cuts on another 3,500 this summer. The initiative primarily applies to food, beverage and essential household items. For example, Clorox scented wipes that previously cost $5.79 are on shelves for $4.99. Huggies Baby Wipes, which were priced at $1.19, now cost 99 cents.
Low-cost supermarket chain Aldi said earlier this month that it was cutting prices on 250 products, including favorites for barbecues and picnics, as part of a promotion set to last through Labor Day.
Arko Corp., a large operator of convenience stores in rural areas and small towns, is launching its most aggressive deals in terms of their depth in roughly 20 years for both members of its free loyalty program and other customers, according to Arie Kotler, the company’s chairman, president and CEO. For example, members of Arko’s free loyalty program who buy two 12-packs of Pepsi beverages get a free pizza. The promotions kicked off May 15 and are due to end Sept. 3.
Kotler said he focused on essential items that people use to feed their families after observing that the cumulative effects of higher gas prices and inflation in other areas had customers hold back compared to a year ago.
“Over the past two quarters, we have seen the trend of consumers cutting back, consumers coming less often, and consumers reducing their purchases,” he said.
In the non-food category, crafts chain Michaels last month reduced prices of frequently purchased items like paint, markers and artist canvases. The price reductions ranged from 15% to up to 40%. Michaels said the cuts are intended to be permanent
Do these cuts bring prices back to pre-pandemic levels?
Many retailers said their goal was to offer some relief for shoppers. But Michaels said its new discounts brought prices for some things down to where they were in 2019.
“Our intention with these cuts is to ensure we’re delivering value to the customer,” The Michaels Companies said. ”We see it as an investment in customer loyalty more than anything else.”
Target said it was difficult to compare what its price-reduced products cost now to a specific time frame since inflation levels are different for each item and the reductions varied by item.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks consumer prices, said the average price of a two-liter bottle of soda in April was $2.27. That compares with $1.53 in the same month five years ago. A pound of white bread cost an average of $2 last month but $1.29 in April 2019. One pound of ground chuck that averaged $5.28 in April cost $3.91 five years ago.
Why are companies cutting prices on some items
U.S. consumer confidence deteriorated for the third straight month in April as Americans continued to fret about their short-term financial futures, according to the latest report released late last month from the Conference Board, a business research group.
With shoppers focusing more on bargains, particularly online, retailers are trying to get customers back to their stores. Target this month posted its fourth consecutive quarterly decline in comparable sales — those from stores or digital channels operating at least 12 months.
In fact, the share of online sales for the cheapest items across many categories, including clothing, groceries, personal care and appliances, increased from April 2019 to the same month this year, according to Adobe Analytics, which covers more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites.
For example, the market share for the cheapest groceries went from 38% in April 2019 to 48% last month, while the share for the most expensive groceries went down from 22% to 9% over the same time period, according to Adobe.
How are retailers funding price cuts
GlobalData’s Saunders said he thinks companies are subsidizing price cuts with a variety of methods — at the expense of profits, at the cost of suppliers and vendors, or by reducing expenses. Some retailers may be using a combination of all three, he said.
Saunders doesn’t think retailers are raising prices on other items to make up for the ones they lowered since doing that would bring a backlash from customers.
Target declined to disclose details but said its summer price promotion was incorporated into the company’s projected profit range, which falls below analysts’ expectations at the low end.
GPM Investments, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of ARKO Corp. said its suppliers are funding the convenience store promotions.
One of only two Byzantine Catholic congregations in Denver is looking to upgrade.
Holy Protection of the Mother of God has listed its existing church building at 1201 S. Elizabeth St. with an asking price of $1.1 million.
That’s $435 a square foot for the 2,600-square-foot structure, which listing agent Matt Harper said a buyer could use as a day care or residence.
“It’s a very interesting architectural building,” Harper said. “It’s surrounded by nothing but residential. It’s a really unique area.”
Harper, of Madison Commercial Properties, is also helping Holy Protection find a new home. He said the congregation has grown in recent years and would like to get something in the range of 6,000 to 10,000 square feet.
“It’s a tough project to do sometimes,” Harper said. “There’s not a whole lot of inventory of churches on the market, and if there are, they are really large or small. It’s tough to find.”
The church’s existing three-story building sits on the edge of the Belacro and Cory-Merrill neighborhoods and includes three office-like rooms, two bathrooms, a main hall where services are held and a small mezzanine on the third floor. The building dates to 1943, per the listing.
Harper said he’s already toured other faith-based groups and someone looking to convert the space into a yoga studio.
Byzantine Catholics have the same beliefs as other Catholics, but follow the traditions of the Eastern Catholic Church instead of the Western Catholic Church, which most American congregations align with. For example, Eastern Catholic services tend to be longer and involve repetition in prayers, and churches usually have many icons, or pictures, throughout.
Holy Protection is a parish under the Arizona-based Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Phoenix, according to its website. It was established in Denver in the 1970s and has operated at its current site since at least the early 2000s.
Holy Protection is one of two Byzantine Catholic churches in Denver, according to the Archdiocese of Denver.
This story was reported by our partner BusinessDen.
NEW YORK (AP) — As Donald Trump’s social media company begins trading publicly Tuesday, would-be investors might ask themselves if the stock is too pricey and potentially too volatile.
Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. was acquired Monday by a blank-check company called Digital World Acquisition Corp. Trump Media, which runs the social media platform Truth Social, now takes Digital World’s place on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
Trump Media debuts with a stock price near $50 and a market value of about $6.8 billion, and will begin trading under the ticker symbol “DJT.” Many of Digital World’s investors were small-time investors either trying to support Trump or aiming to cash in on the mania, instead of big institutional and professional investors. Those shareholders helped the stock more than double this year in anticipation of the merger going through.
They’re betting on a company that has yet to turn a profit. Trump Media lost $49 million in the first nine months of last year, when it brought in just $3.4 million in revenue and had to pay $37.7 million in interest expenses. In a recent regulatory filing, the company cited the high rate of failure for new social media platforms, as well as the company’s expectation that it will lose money on its operations “for the foreseeable future” as risks for investors.
Truth Social launched in February 2022, one year after Trump was banned from major social platforms including Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He’s since been reinstated to both but has stuck with Truth Social.
On Monday, Trump appeared in court in New York at hearing for a criminal case involving hush money payments made to cover up claims of marital infidelity. Afterwards, Trump told reporters that “Truth Social is doing very well. It’s hot as a pistol and doing great.”
However, Trump Media has yet to disclose Truth Social’s user numbers — although that should change now that the company is public. Research firm Similarweb estimates that Truth Social had roughly 5 million active mobile and web users in February. That’s far below TikTok’s more than 2 billion and Facebook’s 3 billion — but still higher than other “alt-tech” rivals like Parler, which has been offline for nearly a year but is planning a comeback, or Gettr, which had less than 2 million visitors in February.
Besides competition in the social media field, Trump Media faces other risks — including to some degree Trump, who will have a nearly 60% ownership stake in the company.
Trump Media, which is based in Palm Beach, Florida, said in a regulatory filing that it “is highly dependent on the popularity and presence of President Trump.” If the former president were to limit or discontinue his relationship with the company for any reason, including due to his campaign to regain the presidency, the company “would be significantly disadvantaged.”
Acknowledging Trump’s involvement in numerous legal proceedings, the company noted that “an adverse outcome in one or more” of the cases could negatively affect Trump Media and Truth Social.
Another risk, the company said, was that as a controlling stockholder, Trump would be entitled to vote his shares in his own interest, which may not always be in the interests of all the shareholders generally.
If recent trading activity is any indication, investors could be in for a bumpy ride. Digital World shares more than doubled this year ahead of a shareholder vote on the merger with Trump Media. After the vote Friday, shares dropped almost 14%, but Monday they rebounded strongly with a gain of 35%.
SAN FRANCISCO — In a top-floor atrium in downtown San Francisco last Thursday evening, tech workers from Google, Slack, X (formerly Twitter) and Mozilla mingled next to a pair of cardboard cutouts of Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya.
Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook founder, chatted as others sipped from cannily named cocktails such as the Fremen Mirage (gin, coconut Campari, sweet vermouth) and the Arrakis Palms (vanilla pear purée, gin, Fever-Tree tonic). Tim O’Reilly, a tech industry veteran, dropped by. Alex Stamos, the former head of security at Facebook, was also spotted.
“Do you think they’ll let me take home one of the freaky sandworm popcorn buckets?” someone in the crowd tittered. The suggestively designed buckets had become a sensation across social media.
The techies were all there to celebrate Silicon Valley’s newest obsession: “Dune: Part Two,” the latest movie adapted from the Frank Herbert-authored science-fiction saga, which helped inspire many of them to become interested in technology. The film, which follows the 2021 installment “Dune,” sold an estimated $81.5 million in tickets in the United States and Canada over the weekend, the biggest opening for a Hollywood film since “Barbie.”
The invitation-only private screening at the IMAX theater in downtown San Francisco was hosted by two tech executives turned podcasters of “Escape Hatch,” a weekly show focused on sci-fi and fantasy films. And it was not the only game in town.
Across Silicon Valley — from venture capital firms to tech executive circles — people had booked their own private screenings of the movie, directed by Denis Villeneuve. On Thursday, the venture firm 50 Years invited founders, friends and investors to “come fuel your imagination with stellar science fiction” in a theater takeover.
Founders Fund, a venture capital firm co-created by Peter Thiel, rented out the Alamo Drafthouse theater in San Francisco’s Mission District for the film’s opening night on Friday, with an open bar and free food. Some people flew in from across the country to attend.
“If you’re a VC firm and you’re not hosting a private Dune II screening, are you even a VC firm?” Ashlee Vance, a longtime technology journalist, wrote in a post on X last month.
Even as tech companies have cut jobs and perks in recent months, the tradition of the sci-fi movie premiere remains alive and well. Films such as “Star Wars,” “Dune” and “Ready Player One” were the very things that helped stir techies’ interest in the field of computer science. No longer content with only watching the future unfold onscreen, employees at companies such as Meta, Google and Palantir have started plucking directly from their favorite movies to build the products of tomorrow.
In Google’s early days, the company routinely bought out entire theaters to see the latest superhero flick. When “Blade Runner 2049” debuted in 2017, the boutique tech investment banking firm Code Advisors rented out the Alamo Drafthouse for a private screening and had a Q&A with the film’s antagonist, Jared Leto. Venture capital firms have repeated the practice for other futuristic films and series, including “The Martian,” “Arrival” and HBO’s “Westworld.”
But “Dune” and “Dune: Part Two” hold a special place in Silicon Valley hearts and minds because of the series’ expansiveness. It doesn’t hurt that “Dune” was born in San Francisco, where Herbert lived in the late 1950s as he researched what became the series of sci-fi novels.
“It is one of the original world-building exercises in genre fiction, and we’re all about world-building here,” said Jason Goldman, a former Twitter executive who joined Matt Herrero, a techie friend, to create the “Escape Hatch” podcast during the pandemic lockdowns.
The “Dune: Part Two” viewing events also acted as a kind of safe space for techies to step away — however briefly — from the tech culture wars that rage on- and offline.
“Twenty years ago, most people coming into tech were idealists with utopian dreams,” said Tom Coates, a tech veteran, at the “Escape Hatch” cocktail party. “That’s clearly not true anymore — now for many it’s much more just a job, and one that has attracted a certain type of ‘tech bro.’ But I think it’s interesting that we’re not all here tonight to watch the Ayn Rand filmography.”
Goldman said part of Silicon Valley’s enchantment with “Dune” could be due to characters such as Chalamet’s Paul Atreides, a messianic figure who leads a downtrodden tribal group into rising up and defeating its evil overlords.
“What people want, what they’re always trying to recreate, is that charismatic leader with the ability to see into the future,” Goldman said. “The hero worship of Steve Jobs is right up there with the fanatical praise of Paul Atreides.”
What was not clear was how many of Silicon Valley’s tech elite had absorbed the finer points of the source material. Herbert was deeply skeptical of man’s technological progress, a perspective that framed his series.
“It’s all based on a world in which artificial intelligence has been wiped out entirely,” said Cal Henderson, a co-founder and chief technical officer of Slack, who attended the Thursday party.
(That morning, Elon Musk had sued OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, over claims that the company had put commercial interests before the future of humanity. “Meta doesn’t even begin to describe it,” another person at the party said.)
Still, attendees were determined to have fun. One presented Herrero and Goldman with a glossy, custom-printed “Dune: Part Two” poster, with the hosts’ faces photoshopped over those of the film’s celebrities. Tables were stacked with trays of Nebula Nebulae parfaits (spiced chocolate and vanilla mousse) and platters of Atreides Delicacies (rice noodles, harissa, sesame oil).
After the movie, which ran 2 hours, 46 minutes, ended, the group headed into a VIP room to record a live edition of the podcast on what they had just seen. The geeking out continued past midnight.
Shortly afterward, Goldman bought tickets to a Monday matinee of “Dune: Part Two.”
