Community-Owned
Real Estate
Reclaiming Our Communities'
Futures in Metro Denver
The real estate market has left our communities behind—community-owned real estate allows us to create a place in Metro Denver for each other. We believe that diverse communities not only belong in Metro Denver but are a crucial part of our social fabric — many vibrant threads of culture and experience make Denver rich, diverse, and dynamic. This program supports all communities’ abilities to live, work, do business, and remain in place, preserving the cultural essence that creates belonging and the conditions for collective power and prosperity.
The Challenge: Preserving Cultural Neighborhoods
The Challenge: Preserving Cultural Neighborhoods
We are witnessing the displacement of residents and entrepreneurs from culturally rich neighborhoods through gentrification. This displacement has a devastating domino effect:
Systemic gentrification forces long-standing businesses and residents out as landlords sell properties to developers at unaffordable rates
Developers prioritize profit over community, actively dismantling established neighborhood economic and social structures
Historically diverse neighborhoods face accelerating displacement, eroding decades of community investment and cultural heritage
Rising property values have increased the tax burden
The economic pressures of gentrification systematically remove community members from their generational homes and business locations
Our Solution: Community Control Through Real Estate Ownerships
CCW's Community-Owned Real Estate project seeks to reverse these market-driven trends by changing the way property, particularly commercial property in legacy cultural neighborhoods, is controlled and owned.
Real estate ownership provides agency and stability, and can unleash creativity and growth as owners no longer have to worry about displacement as their property values rise. When real estate is collectively owned, whether by business owners, community residents, mission-aligned investors, or a mix of all three, the owners have the additional advantage of growing the wealth of the community.
How to Get Involved?
Knowledge Building & Popular Education
Center for Community Wealth’s Community Owned Real Estate (CORE) Academy offers both in person and online learning opportunities for small businesses, nonprofit organizations and emerging groups to learn their options and to build a shared understanding for greater group alignment.
Our intro course is generously sponsored by the Cooperative Education Fund from the Cooperative Development Foundation.
Co-op 101 introductory workshops
Co-op 201 advanced workshops
Cooperative Leadership & Development
Technical Assistance
The pathway to securing real estate can feel confusing and complex. CCW’s technical assistance program supports small businesses, nonprofit organizations and emerging groups based in Metro Denver on their path to community owned or stewarded property.
Group visioning and design
Readiness coaching
Feasibility analysis
Pro forma development
Connection to service providers and lenders
Place-based landscape scan and opportunity mapping
Want to see if technical assistance is right for you? Schedule a 1:1 conversation with our team to share about your project.
Long Term Stewardship & Investment
CCW is currently developing financial vehicles to support strategic real estate acquisition for long term stewardship and community control.
We are currently seeking to connect with investors both large and small who share our vision for a community owned and stewarded real estate that can close the wealth gaps in Metro Denver. Want to connect? Contact us to learn more about long-term stewardship and investment.
