A Wash Park House Survived One Preservation Fight. The Next Owners Almost Didn't.

Tony and Robin Kohake closed on a corner lot at 800 South Franklin Street in February 2025 for $2.6 million. The lot sits directly across from Washington Park, one of the more coveted addresses in the neighborhood, and the Kohakes had no interest in the house that came with it. Their plan was straightforward: demolish the aging structure and build a home large enough for their four kids.

What they did not know, and what nobody disclosed to them at closing, was that this exact property had already been through a fight over that same plan once before, under a previous owner, and that a version of that fight was about to start again with them at the center of it.

What They Actually Bought

The house itself was not in a condition anyone would call livable. Tony Kohake told local reporters the flooring had been removed before the sale and there were holes in the walls, with dry rot, foundation cracking, and a chimney in bad shape. Mold testing later found levels the couple described as roughly 15 times what is considered safe. Two professional repair estimates the Kohakes obtained put the cost of making the home habitable at $1.3 million and $1.35 million respectively, on top of the $2.6 million purchase price.

That math only makes sense if you understand what they were actually buying: an 11,600 square foot corner lot, not a house. This is the same logic driving a broader pattern across Wash Park right now. Some smaller bungalows in the neighborhood have sold purely for land value, in the $1.3 million to $1.5 million range, even as the wider neighborhood's median listing price sits closer to $2 million, and new custom homes replacing these teardowns are routinely exceeding 5,500 finished square feet. If you are shopping a bungalow candidate in this neighborhood with a scrape in mind, you are almost certainly pricing the dirt, not the structure standing on it.

The Fight This House Already Won Once

Before the Kohakes ever saw the listing, the property's previous owner, a man identified in reporting only as Grant, had already applied for a demolition permit on the same house. Neighbors who wanted the home preserved pushed back, a city-hired mediator sat down with both sides, and they reached a deal: Grant withdrew his demolition application, and the residents agreed not to file a formal landmark application. The house stayed standing. Then, in February 2025, Grant sold it to the Kohakes.

The Kohakes say none of that history came up during the sale. When they applied for their own demolition permit in May 2025, the city posted notice on the property, and by late June two separate groups, 24 residents between them, had written to the city about the possibility of landmarking the home. A city mediator was brought in again. This time there was no resolution. In late August, three residents, Susan Debs, Stefanie Jacobs, and Susan Holbrook, filed a formal application asking Denver to designate 800 South Franklin as a historic landmark.

"We are still a bit shocked individuals can landmark designate someone else's property against their consent with almost no skin in the game," Tony Kohake said at the time, referring to the $875 filing fee.

How Three Signatures and $875 Can Freeze a Demolition

The mechanism behind this is written into Denver's landmark preservation code, and it is worth understanding in plain terms before you write an offer on anything in this neighborhood that looks like a teardown candidate. Once a demolition permit application is submitted, city staff have ten days to decide whether the structure potentially meets landmark criteria based on history, architecture, geography, or culture. If it does, the city posts notice on the property and a 21-day review period begins. During that window, community members can discuss the property with the owner, or they can escalate by submitting a formal notice of intent to file for designation.

That single filing extends the posting period from 21 days to 60, during which the city assigns a mediator to bring the property owner and the community members to the table. If no designation or notice of intent shows up at all, the demolition permit is issued automatically once the 21 days run out. But if a notice of intent is filed, the clock resets, and a full designation application can follow. Filing one requires only three Denver residents and an $875 fee, no ownership stake in the property required.

The Denver Revised Municipal Code lays out this sequence in detail, and Historic Denver, the nonprofit that tracks and often participates in these disputes, publishes a plain-language walkthrough of the same steps for anyone trying to understand where a given property sits in the process.

The Timeline That Ran From February to September

Here is how it actually played out for the Kohakes, start to finish:

1. February 2025 – The Kohakes close on 800 South Franklin for $2.6 million.
2. May 2025 – They apply for a demolition permit. The city posts notice at the property.
3. Late June 2025 – Two resident groups, 24 people combined, write to the city raising the possibility of landmark designation.
4. Summer 2025 – A city-hired mediator meets with the Kohakes and the residents. No agreement is reached.
5. Late August 2025 – Debs, Jacobs, and Holbrook formally file a designation application with the Landmark Preservation Commission.
6. September 16, 2025 – The commission holds a public hearing. The vote splits 3-3, which functions as a denial of the designation.

With the designation denied, the Kohakes were free to proceed. The house has since been demolished, and their new home is finished. Seven months elapsed between closing and resolution, on a property that had already survived this exact fight once before.

What This Changes About How You Shop a Teardown

If you are looking at a Wash Park bungalow with a rebuild in mind, the Kohake case points to a few things worth doing before you write an offer, not after.

Ask whether the property has ever been the subject of a demolition application, a notice of intent, or informal preservation pressure, even if the outcome favored the seller. As this case shows, a resolved fight does not mean the fight is over. New owners can trigger a fresh round with new applicants, and the property's history on this front is not something a standard title search will surface.

Build time into your plan, not just money. A demolition permit application that draws attention can add 60 days to your timeline before mediation even starts, and mediation itself has no guaranteed end date. If you are financing new construction around a fixed rate lock or a lease that is ending, that gap matters.

Understand that the bar for a home to become eligible for review is lower than most buyers assume. A structure only needs to be roughly 30 years old and meet three of several criteria tied to history, architecture, geography, or culture to trigger the initial 21-day posting period. Age alone gets a lot of Wash Park's bungalow stock into that conversation.

If you do end up defending a demolition plan before the commission, a documented case matters. The Kohakes' professional repair and mold estimates became part of their formal opposition to the designation application. A property in genuinely poor condition, backed by inspection and remediation reports, is a stronger position than an undocumented assumption that a scrape makes financial sense.

A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Tour

Does every demolition permit in Wash Park trigger a landmark review? No. The city only posts notice if staff determine the structure potentially meets landmark criteria within the first ten days of review. Many demolition applications clear without any posting at all.

Can I find out if a property has already been through this process before I make an offer? There is no single public database that flags this automatically, which is part of what caught the Kohakes off guard. Asking the seller directly, and having someone familiar with Denver's landmark process review the property's permit and mediation history, is the more reliable path.

Does surviving one designation attempt protect a property from a second one? No. As 800 South Franklin shows, a prior mediated withdrawal does not bind future owners or future applicants. Each demolition application restarts the review clock.

Wash Park's scarcity and its scrape economics are exactly why this deserves attention now rather than after you are under contract. A lot priced at land value only pencils out if you can actually build on the timeline you planned around, and the one variable that can throw that timeline off is not the market. It is three of your future neighbors and an $875 filing fee.

If you are weighing a teardown candidate in Washington Park, or anywhere else in Denver's older core, it helps to have someone who has watched this exact process play out review the property before you write an offer. That is the kind of groundwork Christine Nicholson walks clients through, so the surprises show up during diligence, not after closing. Let's Connect.