"Craig Nassi changed Denver's Golden Triangle, but not everything is sparkling" - Westword article by Lisa Rab, published January 29, 2009.
“On sunny winter days, the Beauvalion shimmers like a palace on Lincoln Street. In the center of the sprawling condo complex, twin domes highlighted by Roman columns flank the rooftop pool and garden. Matching cream-colored towers rise on either side like layers of an enormous wedding cake, with floral iron railings icing the balconies.
Inside the property manager's office, a stack of encyclopedia-sized binders documents a long list of headaches not visible to the casual eye: leaking windows, mold in the walis, cracks that show the balcony side walls pulling away from the building.
Four years ago, the Beauvallon was the toast of the Golden Triangle. For $225,000 to $2 million, you could buy 700-square-foot to 4,000-square-foot condos - small enough for empty-nesters, extravagant enough for Nuggets players. Each of the 200 units could be designed to match the tastes of its owners, including marble floors, granite counters and mountain views. The project followed two other similarly showy condo complexes in the neighborhood, all of them built by Craig Nassi.
"People will always buy quality," the brash young developer told the Rocky Mountain News when plans for the Beauvallon were announced. "They see long-term value in my projects. They see that I have a track record; I deliver what I promise."
But in 2007, just two years after Beauvallon residents began moving in, the home-owners' association filed a $21.7 million lawsuit alleging major construction flaws; the case had been scheduled for trial in February, but it's been delayed and no new date has been set.
Thanks to the lawsuit and the national mortgage crisis, the condos began plummeting in value, losing so many hundreds of thousands of dollars in value that some owners simply stopped paying their mortgages and moved away, allowing their lenders and banks to foreclose on their homes. By early December 2008, at least 23 condos were for sale in the Beauvallon, one listed for as little as $139,000.
Nassi himself was long gone. After selling the commercial portion of the Beauvallon to J&J Property Investments, he started working on projects in Reno, Sacramento and Houston. Although he still has employees in Denver, Nassi moved his company headquarters to Manhattan. His most public local appearances now are in Denver District Court, where he's battling the Beauvallon lawsuit - one of at least fourteen liens and lawsuits filed against him in the last decade, ranging from breach-of-contract claims to mechanic's liens filed by contractors who alleged they were not paid.
Nassi's $2.1 million penthouse at the Beauvallon, with its private elevator, 4,000-square-foot rooftop patio and zebra-wood bar, has long since been sold.
And the palace on Lincoln continues to drip water on the people below.”
[Read on. Go to: http://www.westword.com/2009-01-29/news/craig-nassi-changed-denver-s-golden-triangle-but-not-everything-is-sparkling)]