Plans are moving ahead to convert a three-story, 128,000-square-foot government office building in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver into new housing space.
The structure at 251 E. 12th Avenue was built in 1957 and for decades served as the administrative headquarters of the Colorado Department of Labor Employment.
For the last several years, the building has been vacant due to a State of Colorado effort to reduce the Labor Department’s office space.
Ever since the closure of the building, City of Denver officials have been looking at the structure as a potential target for repurposing, transforming the space into new affordable housing. This week a subcommittee of the Denver City Council gave its approval to spending $4.5 million to purchase the structure.
The proposal will now go before the full council in early June for approval.
Support for the project is coming out of a $45 million fund that is a part of the Vibrant Denver bond approved by voters last November. The officially named Affordable Housing Project Fund has been specifically tasked with undertaking projects designed to create housing space in new or existing structures.
The structure sits on a slightly less than one-acre site and has been designated as a Class B building. Its initial 91,000-square-foot footprint was expanded to 128,000 square feet more than a decade ago when an adjacent parking structure was converted into additional office space.
According to the Denver Post, the building was valued at just over $18 million last year. It is regarded as being within the official boundaries of the State of Colorado’s Capitol Complex series of buildings built between 1951 and 2006.
May 14, 2026
By Garry Boulard
Photo courtesy of Loopnet
