Former downtown Michelle location to be auctioned Oct. 8

The downtown Colorado Springs building that housed Michelle Chocolatiers & Ice Cream for more than 50 years will be up for auction next month.

Schur Success Realty & Auction will auction the former restaurant and candy shop at 122 N. Tejon St. at 10:07 a.m. Oct. 8 in the vacant 3,756-square-foot building with a minimum price the company declined to disclose. Bidders must register online and take a driver’s license and a cashier’s check for $10,000 to participate. Under the terms of the auction, 10 percent is added to the winning bid as a “buyer’s premium” to determine the sale price.

Larry Deaton, who will conduct the auction for Schur Success, said the 101-year-old building has attracted “good response,” though he declined to say how many potential buyers had called about or registered for the auction since it was scheduled two weeks ago.

“I am hoping for a whole house full of bidders; they could be either users or investors,” Deaton said. “With this location and frontage (on Tejon Street), it has excellent visibility and is right in the heart of downtown. Commercial properties aren’t moving right now. If you just put a sign in the window, it would take forever to sell it. An auction creates a sense of urgency because you have to bid or the property will be sold to another buyer.”

The building was on the market through Fountain Colony Co. earlier this year for $595,000.

“There has always been interest in this property because of the location and history, just not at that asking price,” said Gary Feffer, Fountain Colony’s owner.

The IRS seized Michelle Chocolatiers in 2007 to satisfy federal tax liens totaling nearly $400,000 at the same time a Denver bank was foreclosing on a $295,000 loan. Ted Byer of Colorado Springs-based Absolute Equity Purchasers Inc. bought the bank’s interest for an undisclosed amount just days before the foreclosure was scheduled to be completed.

Byer couldn’t be reached Friday for comment.

The restaurant and candy store was operated by the Michopoulos family from 1952 until the IRS seizure; it moved to the 122 N. Tejon St. location in 1954. A failed expansion to Denver had left the business deeply in debt.