A real estate deal signed Tuesday will bring to full circle the ownership of two well-known properties in Colorado Springs that are grounded in a steadfast generational relationship.

The philanthropic grantmaker El Pomar Foundation has sold its nearly 70-year-old headquarters and surrounding land at 10 Lake Circle to a business that President and CEO Kyle Hybl calls “a close cousin” — The Broadmoor hotel and resort.

“It’s bittersweet,” Hybl said of the transaction.

“We have our 70-year history in this building executing on our mission to enhance, encourage and promote the present and future well-being of the people of Colorado, and we have this great relationship with The Broadmoor as a legacy family member,” he said. “We expect that relationship to continue.”

Jack Damioli, president and CEO of The Broadmoor, noted that The Broadmoor and the El Pomar Foundation have worked well together for decades, “as organizations mutually devoted to the citizens of Colorado and as neighbors.”

“We are pleased to add formally the well-known structure at 10 Lake Circle to our campus, and we look forward to continuing our association with the El Pomar Foundation,” Damioli said.

Terms of the sale were not disclosed. The property’s assessed market value is $3.65 million, according to the El Paso County Assessor’s Office.

The hotel is owned by the Denver-based Anschutz Corp., which also owns Clarity Media, The Gazette’s parent company.

Damioli said The Broadmoor’s plans for the property are still in the planning stages, as El Pomar staff won’t vacate the building until next summer.

“There are a lot of things we need to figure out,” he said Tuesday after the closing. “I know we’ll have offices in there. The goal will be to figure out how to monetize the building and make it revenue producing in some way.”

Damioli said hotel leaders are excited to have the building under its portfolio since “it’s in the middle of the campus and was built to be part of The Broadmoor in 1957.”

And, “With El Pomar looking at creating their new campus, we surely wouldn’t want to have another entity owning it.”

A quick review of history explains the kinship between the buyer and the seller.

The landmark property at 10 Lake Circle — just north of The Broadmoor hotel’s main entrance — was constructed and opened in 1957 by El Pomar Investment Co., as the headquarters of the charitable work of successful mineral miner Spencer Penrose and his wife, Julie.

The couple founded their statewide foundation in December 1937 to promote the well-being of Coloradans, after having built and opened The Broadmoor in 1918. Their investment company later became the El Pomar Foundation, a private, independent nonprofit organization.

Over its lifetime, the three-story El Pomar building has housed other offices in addition to foundation employees.

At one point, operations of the neighboring Cheyenne Mountain Zoo were in the building, and a printing press for materials for The Broadmoor occupied the garden-level basement. Hotel leadership, other enterprises of The Broadmoor campus and the Pikes Peak Cog Railway also had been located there, Hybl said.

Today the building remains inside the gates of The Broadmoor and provides offices for the foundation’s executive team, along with grant-making, investment and accounting staff.

The Anschutz company acquired the historic 5,000-acre resort 16 years ago from the Gaylord family’s Oklahoma Publishing Co.

That business purchased 80% of The Broadmoor in 1988, after changes in the federal tax law required charitable foundations to divest of any for-profit enterprises.

El Pomar retained 20% ownership of the 10 Lake Circle office building and its grounds that include a parking lot. El Pomar sold its interest to Oklahoma Publishing Co. in 2004, with The Broadmoor having sole ownership.

Returning original properties to wholeness

In the same way that The Broadmoor’s footprint will revert to its original configuration with the new acquisition, El Pomar Foundation’s property also “will be made whole again,” Hybl said.

El Pomar staff will relocate by the end of next June to a building that’s under renovation at 2 Penrose Blvd. It’s on the Penrose estate, which El Pomar owns and operates.

The 27-acre parcel is just a few skips away from The Broadmoor and is the former home of Julie and Spencer Penrose.

Catholic sisters were gifted the Penrose estate from Julie Penrose in 1944 and for years had used the campus as a spiritual retreat and healing destination.

The remodeling project happened to be in the works when The Broadmoor fortuitously approached El Pomar about possibly buying the 10 Lake Circle site, Hybl said.

The 3-acre parcel that’s being renovated, formerly the Namaste Alzheimer’s Center, had been owned and operated by the local Catholic hospital affiliate until it closed in 2023. El Pomar had first rights to buy the property, which it did in 2024.

The expansion is repurposing the healthcare building on the Penrose estate as a nonprofit conference center and offices.

The conference center, named The Commons, is on track to open in January, Hybl said, while the new offices are being completed.

In keeping with the contemporary purpose of most of the Penrose family estate, the 6,000-square-foot events center with a capacity of 450 will be free for nonprofits and government agencies to use.

“Each of the properties is reclaiming itself,” Hybl said.

In addition, the entire Penrose estate will reclaim the original name of El Pomar, which means “the apple orchard” in Spanish.

El Pomar Foundation views the sale of its longtime headquarters as “an amazing opportunity” to consolidate staff in one location, Hybl said. Half the employees, who work in the foundation’s programs of leadership development, community engagement and community convening, already work in offices at the Penrose estate.

Combining all its offices for employees also will improve efficiencies and economies of scale and offset costs of renovation, Hybl said.

Both Hybl and Damioli see the transaction as “a win, win, win for the El Pomar Foundation, The Broadmoor and the community.”