The former Blue Sky Motel along West Colfax Avenue closed its doors to guests years ago, leaving a shell of a building behind.
“I think once you buy a property there are some responsibilities that come with it,” Mohammad Raeouf said.
Raeouf owns Infinite Auto across the street and has raised his concerns about the now-vacant building.
“It may bring more crimes and more bad things to the neighborhood so we would like it to be occupied,” Raeouf added.
The City of Lakewood agrees and passed an ordinance last July to better track properties like the former Blue Sky Motel and their impact to the community, a change that started this month.
Lakewood Economic Development Director Robert Smith says they have identified roughly two dozen properties.
“What happens to it, it becomes a magnet for crime. That’s the bottom line. That’s what happens to it — you have graffiti, you have squatters, you have vagrancy … folks breaking into the building,” Smith said.