Despite the black eye his city received following reports that a Venezuelan gang took over apartment complexes, Mayor Mike Coffman said Aurora’s future is bright and its opportunities for growth endless.

“The state of our city is strong and the future of our city is bright and endless,” he said at the “State of the City” luncheon on Tuesday afternoon at the Hyatt Regency Aurora-Denver Convention Center.

The mayor cited several opportunities for growth and development in Aurora, but he also didn’t hesitate to address the elephant in the room, starting his speech about former President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Aurora and his claim that gangs have “overrun” the city.

Coffman noted that Aurora has been in the news lately — and for all of the wrong reasons.

“Unfortunately, we had a candidate from my party, Republican nominee for the President of the United States, come to Aurora and say that the entire town is being overrun by Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman said. “I had to challenge the former president on that because not to challenge that, to let that narrative stand, has consequences to the city, real consequences, for businesses that are thinking about moving here, for conventions that are thinking about coming here.”

At first, city officials had dismissed the assertion by a property management company that the presence of Tren de Aragua, a violent gang that originated in the prisons of Venezuela, precluded it from doing its work at an apartment complex and that it feared for the safety of its staffers and residents. Officials began walking back their statements after the video of armed men barging into apartment units surfaced and a cache of letters from a law firm representing CBZ Management — written a month before the federal government acknowledged TDA had extended its tentacles into Denver — became public.

A national law firm that investigated the claims said that, through violence and intimidation, the gang took over another complex and sought to collect up to half of the rent from leaseholders, drying up collections for the landlord, according to a law firm’s investigation.

Aurora officials also acknowledged that authorities had arrested people suspected — though not yet confirmed at the time of their apprehensions — of being members of the Venezuelan gang long before the media spotlight on the city. The gang’s activities also “significantly affected” apartment complexes in the city, officials said.

In his state of the city address, Coffman said he received a lot of “hate mail” from Republicans across the country about challenging Trump, but, as the city’s mayor, his role is “to stand up for the city” and “never, ever let anybody sacrifice the interests of your city for a political campaign.”

Coffman said Aurora has a lot of things to look forward to. He specifically focused on three areas for redevelopment, which he said are opportunities for the city to “redefine and revitalize.”

The first is Lowry Air Force Base, he said, the eastern portion of which is in Aurora. In 1994, the Air Force gave the base to higher education and vocational training under a 30-year deed restriction, he said.

The deed restriction period’s end came in August, so officials are looking at how to use the area, which isn’t being used to its full potential, Coffman said.

Councilmember Crystal Murillo is working on a proposal to re-zone the area, Coffman said, pointing to the Stanley Marketplace as a “success story.” He didn’t specifically reference plans for the Lowry base, but said the Stanley Marketplace, which economically revitalized the area around it, is a good place to look for inspiration.

The second redevelopment opportunity is at the Fitzsimons Medical Campus, now the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, which has 32,000 people working on it and 4,500 students being educated there, he said.

The north part of the campus is dedicated to bioscience research, for which  there are four buildings that take up 410,000 square feet. Another building in development will be 230,000 square feet, and there are an additional 50 acres available for bioscience development, Coffman said.

In looking at ways to successfully grow that campus, Coffman said he and several other representatives from the city went to Boston to look at other models for medical campuses, such as the Longwood Medical and Academic Area.

While Longwood and Anschutz have similar things going on, unlike Longwood, Anschutz Medical Campus has room to grow, he said, and that will be a core focus moving into the future.

The campus is also tied to redevelopment opportunities along the Colfax corridor between Peoria and Yosemite Streets, an area that used to be the central business district of the city, Coffman said.

Several factors, including the closing of Fitzsimons and addition of I-70, brought the area down, but that only means there is an opportunity to bring it back, he said.

“Boarded up buildings are not only a symbol of hopelessness, but are a visual blight and attract crime,” Coffman said in reference to the area.

Several businesses, including Dollar General, Walmart and Walgreens have pulled out of the area, leaving the buildings boarded up. However, in talking to business improvement officials, Coffman was told it needed to shift from retail to residential, he said, something they will look into.

Coffman’s full speech can be viewed on AuroraTV.org. The Rotary Club of Aurora hosted the event.