Colorado Mesa University recently purchased a house located at 853 Bunting Avenue, behind the new Centennial Village Apartments and across from the Asteria Theatre. The newly acquired home has provided additional parking space to the university and students in the area after facing demolition.
The house was purchased in early November 2025 for $450,000. This far exceeds its estimated value of $290,720, according to the Mesa County Assessor website.
The small bungalow contained two bedrooms and one-and-a-quarter bathrooms. The design reflected a 40s architecture style, as construction originally finished in 1947. The previous homeowners owned the house since 1978 and primarily used it as a rental property. The home became a convenient location for generations of Mesa County residents and CMU students.
By the time the home sold in November, the houses around it were already razed for more parking on the west side of campus. It’s believed that the university’s desire to expand parking may have increased the selling price. It is unclear why the house did not sell until 2025; holding out may have allowed the owner to sell the property for about $150,000 above its estimated value on the Mesa County Assessor website.
A similar situation may occur with two nearby houses, 1220 and 1240 Cannell Avenue, east of the new Centennial Village Apartments. Confidential, independent parties own the homes and they have not yet been sold to CMU.
They also remain off the market at this time and the Mesa County Assessor website values each property at $284,420 and $320,770 respectively. These two homes could sell for much higher prices in the future.
Since CMU owns practically everything around these two properties, the Board of Trustees can enact eminent domain to force the owners to give up both properties. According to Colorado state law, eminent domain is the compulsory acquisition of private property for public use.
According to Capital Projects manager Jaime Cox, CMU does not want to enact eminent domain.
The Criterion made updates and corrections to this article for improved accuracy on Mar. 9.
