The Asia Center at the south end of Denver’s Little Saigon Business District may have been spared an imminent demise, but the controversy isn’t over.
Asia Center Development LLC, the group that owns the strip mall just north of Mississippi on South Federal Boulevard, filed preliminary plans in April with the City of Denver to redevelop the site, where the current buildings date from 1956. The filing caught the surrounding community by surprise, since none of its members had been consulted about the plans; they learned about it from a social media post.
The property hadn’t been well maintained, and even its current tenants admit it needs a makeover, but they’re afraid that a remake may change the mall’s historic relationship with the southeast Asian community…