In the fall of 2023, Yong Cha Prince’s old motel off Vasquez Boulevard became an accidental sanctuary for hundreds of newly arrived immigrants looking for better lives in the U.S. She was hailed for her kindness at the time, but her decision to open her doors may be coming back to bite her.
Last week, Prince testified in a civil trial over the sale of her crumbling Western Motor Inn. The lawsuit was brought by Sage Investments, a company that turns old motels into housing. The company has been under contract to buy the property since summer 2023, before the immigrants arrived.
The dispute revolves around whether Prince violated the terms of that contract — and whether allowing so many people to shelter on her property caused $2 million in damages that should be knocked off the $6 million sale price.
If Prince wins the case, she might be allowed to walk away from the deal, put the motel back on the market and find a new buyer. If she loses, she may be forced to complete the sale to Sage at a discounted price.
Regardless of the outcome, Prince’s plans to move on from her life in the old motel have already been long delayed. Denver County Judge Andrew McCallin is expected to issue a ruling in the coming weeks.
This deal was supposed to be done more than a year ago.
Denver was struggling to keep up with thousands of arrivals from the southern border when Prince opened up her motel.
Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration offered shelter to people who had been released by Border Patrol and made their way to the city — over 40,000 in total — but Denver could only provide short-term help. Encampments grew on sidewalks as the city made people leave those shelters; many tents were filled with mothers and children, and winter was approaching.
In October 2023, a stranger arrived at Prince’s motel with a couple people who needed somewhere to sleep on a freezing night. Prince invited them inside for free. Word spread and, before long, the place filled with people who had recently arrived in Denver and would otherwise be on the street.
The Western Motor Inn turned into a village for a few months. Kids celebrated birthdays. Parents used the place as a home base as they looked for work. Volunteers threw Christmas parties and filled its common areas with free clothes and supplies. Prince made meals for everyone. The story captured international attention.
Alexandra Ledezma (left) helps Yong Cha Prince make lunch for the 300-or-so people staying here at the Western Motor Inn on Vasquez Boulevard. Dec. 1, 2023. Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Jesús Rafael Abreu, dressed as Santa Claus, doles out gifts and hugs to the young residents of the Western Motor Inn. Dec. 21, 2023. Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Prince planned to shutter the motel after her husband and son, who ran the business with her for a decade, both died — her son most recently, in 2022. Hosting so many people was a tribute to their memories, she said. In court, Prince testified that as many as 400 people were sleeping in her building at one time.
But there was mounting pressure to end the happy fever dream. Prince had racked up $50,000 in fines from Denver’s public health department because the building had sunk into such disrepair. She also had to empty the property to complete its sale.
In February 2024, officials and volunteers helped almost everyone move out of the motel. Prince settled with the city in court a month later, paying just $5,000 and promising not to reopen any rooms.
Her attorney at the time told officials her deal with Sage would be completed in just a few weeks, which would effectively nullify the violations and any further penalties. But the sale was never completed.
In court, Sage Investments argued Prince dropped the ball and violated their contract.
Prince’s situation had become murky when she settled with the city a year ago. She fired an attorney she’d worked with for decades right before her day in court, then hired a handful of other lawyers over the next few months to deal with the health code violations and the sale.
Immigration advocates who had been working with Prince said she gave multiple, conflicting stories about the state of play during that time. One week, she promised to buy farmland where she and her guests might move to live together. Another week, she was considering buying a different motel. Volunteers were confused about where things were going, and they grew frustrated with Prince.
During the trial last week, attorneys working for Sage Investments — and Denver 110 LLC, a subsidiary that’s actually buying the property — said this period early in 2024 was when Prince ghosted them.
“They were ready and willing to close. Instead they were left in the dark as Ms. Prince cycled between lawyers,” Sage attorney Joshua Weiss said in his closing arguments last Tuesday. “Those lawyers gave every indication the deal was on, only for them to strategically go silent until after the deadline had passed.”
One lawyer, whom Prince retained for only a short time, sent a letter to Sage last March that said the contract had been terminated. In a deposition, Prince said she ended the deal because she was upset with the buyer — which Sage’s lawyer argued was an “intentional breach” of the contract.
But Paul Gordon, Prince’s attorney in the civil trial, told the judge last week it was Sage who strung out the deal. The company agreed to extend its contract with Prince multiple times, paying her $50,000 to cover expenses each time.
Gordon told the judge that Prince remains ready to sell for $6 million, but that Sage led Prince on a “path to infinity” as they attempted to lower the price.
“They had eight months to do this in the first place,” he told the judge. “It sort of demonstrates that it just goes on and on and on.”
Prince’s decision to open her hotel is at the heart of this case.
The Western Motor Inn was inspected in summer 2023, months before immigrants filled its rooms. The place wasn’t in great shape, but Weiss told the judge last week that his client was fine with those conditions: Buying distressed properties is the company’s entire business model.
But Weiss said things at the motel became significantly worse over the next year. Pipes had been ripped from the walls. A three-ton commercial furnace had gone missing. A shuttered restaurant space, which once seemed salvageable, now looked like “a bomb had gone off” inside.
He visited the property in October 2024 with an inspection team to evaluate the damage. Their report said the space had lost $2 million in value, though Judge McCallin said he was “having trouble buying” that number.
Weiss walked a fine line as he spoke about what had happened in court, both praising Prince’s humanitarian spirit and blaming her for the property’s degradation.
“No one forced her to house those migrants. I commend her for the humanitarian effort of giving them somewhere to stay when they were bused here,” he told the judge. “But three months after signing a contract to sell the property, you're housing 400 people in a property that, at best, has 110 rooms?”
Gordon argued Sage was scapegoating the immigrants who stayed with Prince to get a better deal. He said the damage could have been caused by squatters and break-ins that predated the new arrivals.
“They can't show, for example, that immigrants are the ones who necessarily caused damages. Could have been the squatters that they saw. Or the criminals that they saw,” he said as the trial wound down. “There's no evidence to support that.”
In his closing arguments, Gordon suggested that the motel’s condition is beside the point. He told the judge that Sage Investments just wants the property for its “location, location, location.”
Weiss countered that the state of the building does matter to the company. Rather than demolishing the motel, he said, Saget wanted to renovate its battered rooms into affordable apartments. He argued Sage needs a discounted price to address damages and make the property habitable again.
The company has not filed any plans with the city that might confirm or disprove those intentions. Sage’s representatives in court declined to speak with Denverite about the case or their plans for the property.
If Prince wins the right to re-list the property for a higher price, Gordon said he expects the would-be buyer to almost certainly appeal.
“This is a good example of why, more often than not, the best thing to do is to settle a lawsuit. Because then there will be appeals, and it's like they're in a marriage that they don't want,” Gordon told us, adding that Sage had declined multiple settlement offers before the trial.
Prince has meanwhile traveled back and forth to South Korea, where she grew up and where she recently paid a down payment on a home. She’s been talking about moving back for over a year, but she’ll need to wait a little longer before she can leave the motel — and its ties to her late son and the hundreds who sheltered with her there — behind.
“I was just ready to sell everything and go to Korea,” she said on the stand. “Even at this moment, I'm ready.”
