Urban Land Conservancy recently announced the sale of the Curtis Park Community Center to anchor tenant Family Star Montessori School. In continuing to grow the community land trust model here in Denver, ULC will own the land beneath the school in a 99 year ground lease, ensuring the building will provide community benefit to the neighborhood for future generations.

ULC first purchased the vacant Curtis Park Community Center and adjacent Curtis Park Nonprofit Center in 2012 for $750,000 with support from Denver’s Office of Economic Development (OED). We then partnered with Family Star Montessori to complete $1.5 million in capital improvements, allowing the school to open its doors in 2012.

Today, Family Star serves over 300 children in Northeast and Northwest Denver each year, 70% of which are living below poverty, are homeless or in foster care. Family Star is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the highest possible accreditation for an early childhood program. We have been proud to work with a school that carries such an excellent reputation in the realm of early childhood education, and are very excited to see the impact that Family Star continues to make in the Curtis Park neighborhood.

“Having a location in the Curtis Park community has been crucial to our mission of providing high quality childhood education to children in Northeast Denver,” said Honey Niehaus, Executive Director at Family Star Montessori. “Family Star is grateful to have worked with ULC to create the school upon acquisition, and we are very excited to have a permanent space to educate and inspire youth for many years to come.”

To learn more about Family Star, you can visit their website here. To learn more about the community land trust model, and its success in preserving affordability by ensuring long term use of land to positively impact communities for generations, check out the following links: National Community Land Trust Network, Confluence Denver.