Modern upscale apartments aim to elevate neighborhood known for drugs, crime

What had become a corner of blight is now going away. Piece by demolished piece.

"It was horrible there are not enough adjectives to describe it," said Robert Smith who heads Lakewood economic development. 

It was the holiday plaza shopping center at 10th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard in Lakewood. Once thriving, but for many years it became a center of decay in the Two Creeks neighborhood.

Now, it is being replaced as part of a transformation of this area.

"We have been big believers in this neighborhood and have been involved there since 2016," said Doug Elenowitz, the developer told CBS News Colorado. 

His company, "TrailBreak Partners" is going to put up a seven-story apartment with 361 units.

It will have a pool, fitness room and underground parking. It follows their other residential developments nearby.

Elenowitz says it is convenient.

"Easy access to downtown Denver the Sloan's Lake area and to the west side of Denver as well," Elenowitz said. 

This is just one location where Lakewood is providing loans to get old declining properties demolished to make way for the new.

"There are places where that redevelopment needs to happen sooner rather than later, so the city is looking for ways to make that happen," Robert Smith explained.

With light rail nearby on Sheridan Boulevard developers now see this gritty part of town as quite attractive.