Tapville Social building sells for $6.5M as developers plan Ballpark hotel

For Ballpark businessman Jon Van Sistine, 1010 Park Ave. was love at first sight.

“Its an amazing building. I used to drive by on the street everyday. I would always tell my wife that’s the most beautiful building in Denver,” he said.

Last week, Van Sistine purchased the 12,200-square-foot, three-story building for $6.5 million from Open Studio Architecture, the firm that developed the property in 2018 and has its office on the second floor.

Van Sistine’s plan is to turn the building’s upper floors into a 16-room hotel. Tapville Social’s first-floor bar will stay where it is.

The building lends itself well to a conversion. The third floor is largely not built out, and Van Sistine said the building is chock-full of modern utilities and systems. He expects to spend around half a million dollars adding interior walls and fixtures. No structural or external work is needed.

“When I went into the building [for the first time], I said: ‘This is perfect, everything is just how I want it,’” he said.

Van Sistine’s business, Hotel Residential, goes after group bookings. He anticipates that corporate and leisure travelers will book an entire floor — eight units and 10 bathrooms each — for an average of $2,500 a night. Bookings can be split into half-floors, with four rooms apiece. He’s referring to the building as HR2, for business purposes.

That’s because his first hotel spot has been open since 2021, just a few blocks away at 2109 Larimer St. That building has eight rooms, split into two suites. Van Sistine said it makes about $600,000 in revenue there.

The 39-year-old has been in Denver for a while, moving to town after finishing college in Wisconsin. His older brother, Matt, also recently purchased a Ballpark building and is active in the neighborhood.

Van Sistine expects to have his new spot open by early next year.

“I’m shooting for six months, but I bet some people would laugh at that … The construction isn’t overly major but it is kind of working with the city on their timeline,” he said.

Meanwhile, Open Studio will continue to work in the building as it searches for a new space.

“We are looking in RiNo, we are looking in some parts of LoHi – but it’s hard to find what we need in that market,” said Blake Mourer, Open Studio’s owner and co-founder.

Mourer said that he expects to buy the company’s next office space and do an adaptive reuse of the building, adding that he’d like to be the only tenant inside.

Open Studio’s sale of 1010 Park Ave. comes amidst a change in ownership at his company. Mourer founded it in 2011 with Brad VanArsdale, who retired at the end of 2019. But VanArsdale still had a 50% stake in the building.