Inside the Fontius

View from the Inside. Downtown Denver's most blighted property, the Fontius Building (a/k/a the Steel Building, named after the original occupant in 1923, Steel's Department Store) has been a regular topic of discussion here at DenverInfill. Under the ownership of the Cook family, the building at the corner of 16th and Welton sat mostly vacant and in appalling disrepair for almost 20 years, despite its prime location in the heart of Downtown Denver and the efforts of Downtown leaders to promote its revitalization. The DenverInfill Blog in June 2006 helped raise public awareness of the issue, and in early 2007 profiled the history of the building and the dilapidated state of its exterior. Finally, in July 2007, veteran developer Evan Makovsky of Shames-Makovsky Realty was able to acquire the building and ensure its complete restoration and reuse. A September 2007 feature story, Evan Almighty by Westword's Joel Warner, documented the saga of the Fontius Building's and Block 162's fall and promised return to respectability.

Shortly after Makovsky's acquisition of the Fontius in September 2007, DenverInfill was the given the privilege of exploring the Fontius before any renovation work had begun and to photograph the interior of a building that, in many ways, has sat frozen in time for almost 20 years. The extent of the Fontius Building's neglect was profound and is barely captured by the photos below. But, thanks to Mr. Makovsky, the building's decades-long disgrace will become just another interesting footnote in Downtown Denver's rich history.

Click on a thumbnail to view the photograph.

Photos were taken in September, 2007.

Welcome to the Fontius (a/k/a Steel) Building. First stop: the former Fontius Shoes ground-floor retail space that has been sitting vacant for about 20 years:

Many thanks to Evan Makovsky and Ben Kuruvila of Shames-Makovsky Realty and Joel Warner of Westword for their assistance in facilitating this photo documentary.

In the back of the store is a maze of storage shelves capable of holding thousands of shoe boxes. At the end of one row is a spiral staircase leading to additional storage in the mezzanine:

Inside the display windows at the corner of 16th and Welton:

While the Fontius Shoes space was vacant for years, other ground-floor retail spaces were occupied right up until the Makovsky acquisition. First, the souvenir shop:

The wig shop and the cobbler shop:

The former jewelry store, Kenmark Shaw's, closed a couple of years ago and featured handsome built-in wooden display cases and shelves:

The entry to the upper floors is off Welton and leads to the elevator and main stairs:

The 2nd floor once held a dance studio complete with a running track. A sign found on the premises says "Dance Unlimited". The space is believed to have been vacant since the 1980s:

Part of the 3rd floor was occupied until recently by "Los Wigwam Weavers", but the rest of the floor has been vacant for years, judging by its condition:  

Much of the 4th floor served as a storage area for Dupler's Furs. The vacant space still reflects, after several decades, its former function:

The 4th floor was also partially occupied until recently by an optometrist's office, which abandoned a number of optometry relics when they left:

The service hall behind the 1st floor retail spaces reveals years of neglect:

Numerous stairways and the freight elevator provide the way between floors and to the building's basement, sub-basement, and roof:

Welcome to the basement, much of which is a truly scary space occupied by abandoned equipment, obsolete infrastructure, and evidence of appalling neglect:

Part of the basement was a former Dave Cook's store that had a direct stairway--since covered over-- leading from the 16th Street Mall directly into the basement retail space:

Throughout the building are numerous safes and vaults--some open, some not:

Up to the roof and the great views of Downtown Denver offered from the Fontius Building's central location:

Finally, the Fontius Building is full of various pieces of equipment, signs, and other strange items that have been sitting, untouched, for decades: