The Aurora City Council voted Monday to move forward with a purchase agreement for a 13-acre hotel site for its future regional navigation campus. 

The campus is intended to be a “one stop shop” for homeless services, helping direct people to shelters and resources, similar to the Colorado Springs Rescue Mission.

The property is at 15550 E. 40th Ave. in Aurora, which is currently a Crowne Plaza hotel and convention center. 

After some debate at Monday’s meeting, the council voted to move forward with purchasing the land despite “no” votes from Councilmembers Curtis Gardner, Alison Coombs and Ruben Medina. 

Gardner expressed concern about whether the campus would be the best use of taxpayer dollars, saying spending on homelessness in the Denver metro area has increased and so has the number of homeless people. 

He said the approach was similar to Denver and “other cities,” which haven’t seen a decrease in homelessness. 

“I presume I’m going to be in the minority here,” Gardner said in expressing his disagreement. “Once this facility is operating, I do hope that it is more successful than what we have seen in Denver and other cities. But I think there are cheaper ways to accomplish housing for folks that have abated camps.”

Councilmember Francoise Bergan said that while she has struggled with the idea of the navigation campus because it will cost a lot of money, she has decided to support it.

The campus is a “good solution” to help homeless people get the help they need and eventually transition into work and permanent housing, she said. 

“It’s really cruel to see the conditions that they live in and currently … we have some shelter but not enough,” Bergan said. “This seems to be a good solution for us to be able to look at, for example, the Colorado Springs Rescue Mission and their model, which has been very successful in moving people out of that situation and I think that’s the hope.”

Councilmember Dustin Zvonek called Denver’s housing-first approach an “abject failure,” saying the navigation campus Aurora is working on is completely different.

“This isn’t money going just toward housing homeless,” Zvonek said. “Denver’s going around buying a bunch of hotels and people view that as we’re doing the same thing. It’s not. We have a different system, a different model and an entirely different plan for this campus.”

The campus would help the city “aggressively enforce” its camping ban, allow the city to spend less money on homeless services over time due to nonprofit partners operating the facility and bringing others to the campus, Zvonek said.

Other cities are “playing games of hide the homeless,” calling not seeing people on the streets a success, Zvonek said. 

“That’s not compassion,” Zvonek said. “We are going to have a navigation center that will allow people, whether you’re a single mother escaping domestic abuse or you’re an older veteran who’s suffered from substance abuse … we are going to have programs that will help you toward self sufficiency.”

Councilmember Alison Coombs said the proposed campus does not include a plan to take care of homeless families, adding the city’s intention is also to redirect existing marijuana tax funding away from “the only program that does serve families.”

Coombs is referring to staff recommendations in 2023 to cut funding from homeless service providers due to a decrease in city revenue from marijuana tax funds. 

“That’s concerning to me, we don’t have a plan for families,” Coombs said. “My second concern is that we’re continuing to state that we’re basing this on San Antonio and Colorado Springs, neither of which have seen a decrease in street homelessness in the times that they have had these programs in place.”

The city was originally going to use land already owned by the city for the campus, near East 32nd Avenue and Chambers Road, but will instead use this land for other city services. 

City staff have toured the site on several occasions in past months and determined that it has many amenities needed for the project, including a convention center space for emergency and day sheltering, an industrial kitchen, industrial laundry, congregate space and space for service providers to do case management, along with 255 rooms, according to a city news release.

The current property owner plans to stop doing business in coming months and the city will close on the property in March.

In total, the city would pay $26.5 million for the property, based on an appraisal prepared by a third-party firm in November. 

The city has collected almost $40 million in funds for the project so far, with funding coming from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA), Aurora American Rescue Plan (ARPA), Aurora Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Adams County ARPA, Adams County HUD, Arapahoe County ARPA, Douglas County ARPA, and Community Development Block Grant COVID funds. 

The navigation center would offer a variety of services, including transitional housing, employment services, workforce development, emergency shelter, a medical clinic, addiction counseling, mental health services, medical respite beds, housing navigation, case management and meals, according to the news release.

City staff members have consulted with homeless service providers on programming and services and plan to reach out to area residents, businesses and other stakeholders.