A handful of Five Points tenants have turned against their billionaire-linked landlord.
Multiple businesses that lease space from Denver-based The Flyfisher Group say the firm and its CEO Matthew Burkett is burdening them with bogus charges and attempting to wrest control of their operations while Burkett publicly portrays himself as a force for good.
The comments from Cobbins and other business owners come in the wake of a string of lawsuits filed against them by Flyfisher entities. The statements provide context for the shuttering of Welton Street Cafe, a Five Points institution that recently moved out of a Flyfisher-owned building. They said that is why Burkett has been doing something that most landlords don’t — asking his tenants to sign “operating agreements” that give him an ownership stake in their business and a final say in decisions.
Courtney Samuel, a former college cornerback and founder of the Bodies by Perseverance gym, signed a lease for his 3,000-square-foot space at 2860 Welton St. in 2018. He signed an operating agreement with Burkett, who was also a client, that included a full build-out of the space and a $30,000 investment for a 40 percent stake of the personal trainer business.
Burkett’s personal website describes him as a philanthropist and “professional globetrotting fly angler.” Born in Denver and raised in Evergreen, he moved back to Denver in 1996 after lobbying for a telecommunications firm in Washington, D.C. and ran a property-services company in Five Points, according to the Denver Business Journal. Colorado Homes & Lifestyle magazine did a feature last year on the 14,000-square-foot mansion where Burkett lives with his family.
Cobbins, who opened Coffee at the Point at 710 E. 26th Ave. in 2010, said he has been friends with Burkett for the past 10 years, but things have changed recently.In 2020, Flyfisher announced it was launching a food and beverage group called Pure Hospitality, which would invest in existing restaurants along Welton Street and launch new ones like Mimosas and MBP. Cobbins was named as one of three individuals running the new group.
“He wants the $28,000 back with interest, but he’s already gotten more than his money’s worth with what I’ve done for him,” Cobbins said. “I’m talking about waking up at 3 a.m. three times a week because the alarm is going off or somebody’s breaking into Mimosas, or the pilot light was on in the oven, plus the $8,000 I spent on Coffee at the Point’s speaker.”
“The unit he gave me was used as a squatting spot because it was vacant during COVID,” Millard said. “There were homeless people staying there before I went in there. It wasn’t up to code, and there was urine and feces everywhere. So, I had to hire a professional cleaner which I was never reimbursed for.”
When Millard met with Burkett to discuss the situation, Burkett presented an operating agreement to Millard as a way to get out of the fees. Millard said he received bills for thousands of dollars in monthly expenses for things such as landscaping, despite the fact that there is no greenery on the Five Points Plaza property, only a parking lot. He also said he was splitting a $12,000 a month fee for security with other businesses in the plaza.
Millard has relocated his business to 1400 Oneida St. in the Montclair neighborhood, and said he had to go back to work in the corporate world to support himself and his fledgling business. Jones said they were brought on by Burkett to consult on a number of projects, including FlyFisher’s restaurants Mimosas and MBP, as well as the Rossonian and a possible transformation of the Five Points Plaza parking lot into an amphitheater that never came to fruition.
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