More than 100 former tenants of an Aurora apartment complex are suing the building’s manager and contractors, saying negligence during and after the complex’s construction caused the explosion that left some homeless in 2022.
On the morning of Sept. 10, 2022, residents of the Parkside Collective complex near Aurora’s city hall were forced out of their building by a fire alarm. As they gathered across the street, an explosion ripped through the wall of a fourth-floor utility room, showering some with debris and sending the group running for cover.
Residents were kept out of the building for days, and when they returned, many found their apartments had been forcibly entered and burglarized.
“So many people’s lives were upended,” said attorney Jessica Prochaska, who is representing tenants on behalf of law firm Burg Simpson. “They lost their belongings. And they saw something so traumatic that will stay with them the rest of their lives.”
She and fellow attorney Michael Burg blamed property management company Holland Residential for failing to secure the building after the explosion. The lawsuit also blames the company for failing to respond to residents’ concerns about electrical problems throughout the complex, which included flickering lights and tripping circuit breakers.
Aurora Fire Rescue investigators traced the explosion back to an electrical conduit buried on the west side of the building, which they said was broken during construction and became damaged by water over time.
The lawsuit says PVC plastic components were used in parts of the conduit where plans for the electrical systems serving the building included metal components that would have been more resilient. The conduit was also covered incompletely by a poured concrete slurry and was partially covered using dirt and broken pieces of concrete, the lawsuit alleges.
When an electrical arc within the conduit burned the PVC plastic, it generated hydrogen gas that accumulated in the utility room until static electricity caused the gas to ignite, investigators found.
“Like a hidden time-bomb, the (conduit) and associated wiring continued to degrade, smolder and release combustible gases,” the 122-page complaint states. “(A) small spark was enough to set off an explosion that destroyed the lives of an entire community.”
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Companies Milender White, Elite Surface Infrastructure, Front Range Electrical Engineering and Courtesy Electric are also named as defendants in the lawsuit, which accuses them of acting negligently in their respective roles setting up the building’s electrical systems.
None of the defendants responded to a request for comment Monday. The building has since reopened under the name Stella on the Park. The former tenants’ lawsuit seeking compensation for injuries, lost property and other damages was filed Aug. 30, and an amended complaint was filed Sept. 6 in the Arapahoe County District Court.
Burg and Prochaska said a separate lawsuit against a company that provided rental insurance to at least 35 tenants and declined to pay out claims is moving forward in federal court.
“Everyone around them just failed them,” Prochaska said of the former tenants.
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