Three months ago, the owners of the Clocktower Cabaret faced a stinky surprise in their downtown Denver basement venue: thousands of gallons of raw sewage that had been released onto their floors in a mishap by a crew on the 16th Street Mall construction project.

But the husband-wife pair, Jefferson and Selene Arca, have yet to receive what they say they’re owed — around $75,000 for damages and lost income — from the city or its insurance carrier as their small performance club scrapes by.

“Our business has suffered because of the construction,” said Selene Arca, 44. “Literal crap in our room was kind of like the last straw.”

The Clocktower Cabaret has operated along the 16th Street Mall since 2006, partially relying on foot traffic to boost attendance for its burlesque, drag and live music events. But since the city’s mall reconstruction project kicked off in April 2022, the night club on the lower level of the Daniels & Fisher Tower, 1601 Arapahoe St., has felt the squeeze on business, as fewer folks navigate the mall.

The anticipated timeline for construction on the $172.5 million mall renovation has been lengthened from the end of 2024 through much of 2025. Although it’s moving at a slower pace, the project is making progress: In June, a section between Larimer and Lawrence Streets finally reopened.

The Arcas feel excited about the 16th Street Mall’s revamping, but “our biggest concern is that we’re not going to make it to that point,” Selene Arca said.

The sewage incident was discovered on the morning of April 24, when a manager walked into the cabaret to find “inches of fresh waste water” seeping into its carpet from drains beneath the tower, Arca said. She said it contaminated antique furniture and artwork.

According to Arca, the construction team explained that it had been flushing out a sewer line. She recalled being told, “We didn’t realize that you guys were connected to it.”

PCL Construction Services, the project’s main contractor, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“A biohazard to be in there”

The Clocktower Cabaret temporarily shuttered for 10 days, canceling nine shows, so that HRS Restoration Services could perform professional sewage mitigation to clean up the waste from the rented space in the tower.

“We’re surviving post-pandemic. We’ve been there for 18 years, and we don’t have the luxury of waiting,” Arca said. “It was a biohazard to be in there.”

During the closure, the venue lost income, as did its 20 employees on payroll and 40 performers, she added.

Arca and her husband took out loans to handle the emergency, but they say they’re falling behind on about $36,000 in bills from the initial cleanup. There’s still unfinished repair work to do in the back boiler room, too, but the couple doesn’t have the money to pay for that yet.

“Three months down the road, we haven’t seen a penny,” said Jefferson Arca, 55. “They say they wired us twice — failed, failed. Sent us two checks in the mail — never got here, never got here.”

He said he was waiting on a $50,000 claim for loss of income and a $25,000 claim for damages and repairs, both filed in early May.

“We thought, if this was such a terrible, disgusting accident, that they would be embarrassed and they want to make it right,” Arca said. Meanwhile, “we’re just falling further behind financially right now.”

City insurance claim

Joshua Rosenblum, a spokesperson for Denver’s Department of Finance, said the city carries insurance that covers contractors for certain projects. He confirmed city officials’ commitment to ensuring remediation of the damages.

“This is just a tough thing that happened,” he said.

Within two days of the April incident, Rosenblum said, the city filed a claim with its insurance carrier, which is responsible for reimbursing the Clocktower Cabaret for repair costs. He was aware of one failed electronic payment and two lost checks sent by Zurich Insurance Group — an issue that’s since been elevated, he added.

Rosenblum said the revenue loss portion of the claim was still being reviewed by the insurance carrier’s forensic accounting team.

“We are trying to push the insurance company to pay them,” Rosenblum said. “We care about them. We want this to be resolved.”

Crawford and Co., the claims adjuster, declined to comment, citing confidentiality reasons. Zurich Insurance Group, the insurance company, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

For now, the Arcas continue to wait.

“We want to go back to April 23,” Selene Arca said. “We want to just be back where we were before all this happened.”

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Originally Published: July 26, 2024 at 6:00 a.m.