Cold War complex tough sell for broker

210-acre site includes Titan I missile silos

James Paton, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 25, 2006 at midnight

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Stew Mosko's black Mercedes rolled past a barbed-wire fence and a dilapidated guard post, leading a caravan of curious visitors into a once top-secret and still virtually unknown site in Arapahoe County.

The real estate broker arrived at his most unusual listing, a field 25 miles southeast of downtown Denver, lifted a steel door on the ground and descended 80 feet beneath the surface into a warren of tunnels and control rooms resembling something out of the television show Lost.

The government created the complex during the Cold War, at a cost of $130 million, to house Titan I missiles designed to strike the Soviet Union, Mosko said. Residents who lived in the area were oblivious, and many undoubtedly still are.

In one room is a board labeled "launchers" with buttons to enable and disable three missiles and clocks that, in a World War III scenario that is terrifying to contemplate, presumably would have counted down the minutes until the nukes nailed their targets.

"That's where the guy with the red phone sat ready to launch an ICBM with a nuclear warhead that could hit Russia in 32 minutes," he added, pointing to a rusty panel nearby.

An orange sign giving instructions on what to do in the event of severe chemical burns sits on the ground in a dusty corner. There is one bathroom, for men. Equipment and light fixtures are on springs, apparently so they would stay intact if an explosion rocked the site.

Built in 1960, the silos were shuttered two years later and sold back to the farmer who previously owned the land for $1, Mosko said. An eccentric and wealthy young Kansas man possessed it briefly before the current owner, a Utah man, came along, he added. But it has basically been dormant for 45 years.

The only visitors: an occasional vandal or partyer who managed to slip in when the owner forgot to lock up. Glass windows on some of the doors are shattered, tables and chairs are overturned, and a bit of graffiti is scrawled on one wall, evidence of the trespassers.

Mosko is not giving a tour of this fortress meant to be "nuke-proof" because he is a history buff.

He's doing it because he's trying to sell it - still.

Television and newspaper reports over the past year have helped stir interest, but not enough to seal a deal. Scenes of a low-budget horror movie were shot in the facility recently, and a number of people have made inquiries, including a businessman who sought to turn the place into a haunted house, but that's about it.

"I'm used to being successful, and this one is aggravating because I can't get it done," said Mosko, who sells land to developers and home builders for Fuller & Co. and has been in the business for 27 years.

The 210-acre site has languished on the real estate market for nearly $1.7 million, a price that reflects only the value of the land, he said, not the 50,000-square-foot facility spread below 35 acres of the site.

The facility is definitely a fixer-upper, and the renovation would require a significant investment. The asbestos and the debris everywhere will keep interested parties wary, yet Mosko said the Army Corps of Engineers has checked out the site and determined it is clean. One option is to purchase the property, he said, and just forget about the piece of Cold War history.

The underground missile complex is one of a handful in the state, Mosko believes, however it is unique because it is the only accessible one.

One of the guests Wednesday, businessman Jay Allen, pondered the possibilities, wondering aloud whether the site could be transformed into a prison, a data center, a wine cellar or a restaurant.

Maybe a nightclub with a missile theme. They could call it Silo.

Perhaps a multilevel, mushroom- growing farm, Mosko said.

"You'd definitely be the only one in the neighborhood with a missile-silo complex," said Allen, who runs an organization called CXO that arranges networking events for corporate executives.

Mosko hopes Allen can introduce him to a potential buyer with deep pockets or at least spark renewed conversation and ideas.

Allen invited a couple of journalists and others including Ed Bassett, vice president of Greenwood Village-based information technology consulting company Ciber Inc., to join in.

"Every time I've shown it, the same thing happens," Mosko said. "It's so big and so hard to get your arms around, everybody's brains turn to mush. They say, 'What the hell am I going to do with this monstrosity?' "

"This has not been easy," Mosko said. "But it's been fun."

patonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2544

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