Investor sues Spirit Hospitality for third time

DENVER — An investor and limited partner in a once-thriving and ambitious hotel management and development company based in Northern Colorado has filed his third lawsuit in two months against the company, this time alleging that it failed to record his investments on deeds as required by the terms of the partnership and that it owes him money.

Alan Butterfield, who targeted Spirit Hospitality LLC and receiver Ryan Gulick in a pair of lawsuits filed in Denver District Court, sued them again Friday along with the estate of Spirit founder William Albrecht, who died in 2023, Marcie McMinnimee as personal representative of Albrecht’s estate.and one of the property-owning entities Spirit controlled.

Each of the hospitality properties that Spirit managed was owned by a separate development company started by Albrecht that is named “Willco” followed by a Roman numeral. As of February, its once thriving empire had shrunk to Candlewood Suites locations in Fort Collins and Thornton, a Fairfield Inn and Suites in Fort Collins, and a Hilton Garden Inn with attached Johnny’s Italian Steakhouse in Thornton. All had been listed for sale.

According to company sources, both Candlewood hotels, including the one at 314 Pavilion Lane in Fort Collins, are now under contract, while the Fairfield Inn at 3520 Timberwood Drive in Fort Collins remains for sale, as does the Hilton and its steakhouse.

Butterfield in 2017 and 2018 had become an investor and limited partner in two of the entities, Willco X and Willco XIV. According to the complaint he filed Friday, he in September 2018 was offered a “Super Secured Limited Partnership” in Willco XIV, which owned a tract of land near downtown Fort Collins, in exchange for purchasing one “Super Secured Limited Partner Unit” for $800,000. Several investors signed up, but Butterfield’s status “gave him rights and priority over other investors,” the complaint states. “For example, any loans should have been subordinate to and behind Super Secured Limited Partners in the ‘waterfall’ of investors and payments.”

Butterfield’s complaint says Spirit was required to post deeds of trust for such purchases in the county’s title records within 60 days after the sale of the last partner unit. However, the complaint says, “Butterfield did not know, because Defendants never told him, when or if Spirit had finalized secured investors in Willco XIV and issued the last Super Secured Limited Partner and Secured Limited Partner Unit,” and “to date, Butterfield has not received from any of the Defendants a deed of trust, or confirmation that Spirit or Willco XIV had recorded his deed of trust, reflecting his Super Secured Limited Partner investment in Willco XIV.”

Butterfield’s lawsuit also alleges that in early 2023, Spirit and Albrecht, as the general partner of Willco XIV, directed that entity to transfer at least $902,607.37 in funds to a new company called BIBCO LLC, owned by Albrecht and partners William Scott and Ira Barrett.

The complaint alleges that “Spirit, by and through Albrecht, wrongfully took over $2 million in Willco XIV’s investors’ monies out of Willco XIV for Mr. Albrecht’s own purposes and/or his own benefit” inconsistent with its fiduciary obligations to its investors.

“Butterfield (and likely others) thought, felt and trusted that Spirit and Albrecht were meeting their obligations,” the complaint says, but adds that they “were denied access or ability to see and review the other Willco entities’ balance sheets” and that “these actions … would not have been made if Spirit and Willco XIV had properly recorded Butterfield’s deed of trust.”

The money paid to BIBCO should have gone to the investors, Butterfield claimed, and that McMinimee, as the representative for Albrecht’s estate, “failed to take appropriate and timely actions to remedy this situation, despite ability and/or authority to do so.”

As a result, the lawsuit claims, “Butterfield has not been paid amounts of money that should have been paid to him pursuant to his position as a “super” partner in Willco XIV.

Friday’s lawsuit follows two that Butterfield filed in February. On Feb. 5, he sued Spirit and receiver Gulick in a complaint that demanded a jury trial. He said Gulick had sent him a letter of termination from Spirit’s board on Dec. 14, which the lawsuit contended was in violation of the terms of a Dec. 1, 2023, contract with Spirit that appointed Butterfield to serve as one of its managers through Nov. 30, 2033, and agreed to pay him $8,000 a month throughout the 10-year term and reimburse him for “all expenses reasonably incurred and paid by him.”

Then on Feb. 11, he sued Spirit and Gulick again and added Willco VII, owners of the Fort Collins Candlewood Suites, to the complaint. He alleged that Spirit sold him a secured limited partnership unit in Willco VII for more than $242,000 in February 2024 but, as with Willco XIV, failed to disclose to him that it had not recorded a deed of trust reflecting that transaction. Butterfield claimed that Spirit and Gulick told him that his request that the deed of trust be filed “is somehow barred by the statutes of limitation.”

Court cases include: Alan Butterfield v. Spirit Hospitality LLC and, by and through its Receiver, The Receiver Group LLC and Ryan Gulick in Denver District Court. Case No. 2025-CV-30479; Alan Butterfield v. Spirit Hospitality LLC, The Receiver Group LLC and Ryan Gulick, and Willco VII Development LLP in Denver District Court. Case No. 2025-CV-30530; and Alan Butterfield v. Spirit Hospitality LLC, The Receiver Group LLS and Ryan Gulick, Willco XIV Development LLLP, the estate of William Albrecht and its personal representative, Marcie McMinimee. Case No. 2025-CV-30960.

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