Tri-Lakes Center for Arts near Colorado Springs is sold | Arts & Entertainment

Tri-Lakes Center for Arts near Colorado Springs is sold | Arts & Entertainment

After nine months on the market, the Tri Lakes Center for the Arts building has sold.

The almost 9,500-square-foot property, originally listed for $1,450,000, was purchased Jan. 17 for $760,000 by Gak Real Estate Holdings, according to the El Paso County assessor.

The building, once the home of concerts featuring local, regional and nationally known musicians, including John Schneider, Billy Bob Thornton and The Boxmasters, Pam Tillis, Branford Marsalis and Judy Collins along with nationally known speakers, regular art exhibits and art classes, will now be home to a fiber-optics company, said Palmer Lake Mayor Glant Havenar.

“It’s zoned for light manufacturing,” Havenar said. “It’s fiber optics but a holding company that bought it.”


Longtime arts center near Colorado Springs for sale

Logan Harrison, partner and managing director of Thrive Commercial Partners, who helped market the property, attributes the reduced selling price to current market conditions.

“If a seller wants a property sold they have to be sensitive to what the market will pay,” he said.

Though its home base is gone, the nonprofit TLCA will continue to operate, according to Michael Maddox, the art center’s executive director.

“The TLCA board of directors voted unanimously to sell the TLCA property. We are not dissolving the nonprofit,” Maddox wrote in an email. “We plan to sponsor and conduct bigger concerts and art events utilizing larger venues and working with other arts organizations. We have been severely limited by our 170-seat capacity for events. We are excited for the future of the TLCA.”

The building was closed more than a year ago by the Palmer Lake Fire Department due to a failed fire inspection, code violations and unsafe conditions. The building also was missing a certificate of occupancy.

Palmer Lake resident Kimberly Ward bought the TLCA building and donated it to Palmer Lake Arts Council in 1998 to be used as a community arts center. TLCA became a nonprofit in 1999 and Maddox took over around 2010.

Maddox was not required to consult with the town about potential buyers because Palmer Lake doesn’t own the nonprofit or the building.

“Palmer Lake needs an arts center, a community center, a place for people to gather,” Havenar said. “It’s a beautiful building and it’s been here for a long time. We need it, but I don’t have any control who he sells to.”


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The sale of the building faced some opposition from residents, who called the sale secretive after TLCA members weren’t notified it was on the market. The nonprofit also changed its articles of incorporation in 2022. Originally the TLCA’s assets would go to the Palmer Lake Historical Society upon dissolution. The change ensured that assets would now be distributed to other nonprofits as determined by the TLCA board, which includes Maddox, his wife and their son.

“I’d think it would need votes from membership to make that sale,” said Palmer Lake resident Jennifer Rausch, “and the thing we’ve uncovered over the last couple of years is he’s driven away any members who have been part of the organization. … There are no members left to hold him accountable.”

The change in the articles of incorporation was made to ensure the dissolution provisions matched the dissolution language already included in the TLCA’s bylaws, wrote TLCA’s attorney Michael J. Cook, of Cook Rector Pearce, in an email last year.


Arts center near Colorado Springs temporarily closed

“It’s not clear where the assets would go,” Rausch said. “Our concerns were he has his own 501c3 and would shift those assets to his own organization. Without any members left we don’t know who’s left to question where the assets are going. A lot of people are rightfully worried those assets are leaving the community.”

Maddox told Havenar he intends to stay in the area and continue to do shows through the TLCA.

“One concert and art exhibit at a 2,000-seat venue will impact more people than 12 events at the former TLCA venue,” Maddox wrote in an email. “Because of our rich history of working with nationally recognized performing artists, we look forward to events featuring even more famous singer-songwriters and bands.”

Contact the writer: 636-0270

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