Andrew Feinstein is well known in Denver for the 3,000 person capacity EXDO Event Center, one of Denver’s most popular and creative spaces, and the legendary Tracks nightclub. He is also widely recognized for his vision in redeveloping and facilitating several catalytic projects in the River North Art District (RiNo), including projects such as Link 35 apartments, the Cole Market anchor retail and multi-family development, Industry RiNo Station, the HUB, the Catbird Hotel and Denver’s new World Trade Center campus.  

Andrew’s roots in Colorado go back to 1863, when the patriarch of his family – Michael Hattenbach – migrated to Colorado from Germany seeking opportunity. Beginning in Leadville selling mining supplies, Michael worked his way to Curtis Park and entered the grocery business, where in 1870 he was one of eight Jewish families to found Temple Emanuel, now the largest synagogue in the Rocky Mountain region. One of his sons became a union leader and State Senator.

Two generations later, Andrew’s father befriended a man, Marty Chernoff, who would have a transformational impact on Andrew’s career. Marty - “rocket scientist turned card counter”, Andrew says - came to DU in 1959 from Brooklyn as a 16-year-old without any money, paying his college tuition with poker winnings. In the 1970s, Marty bought a bar downtown, “in what was known as the Bottoms area,” Andrew says, “because it flooded all the time.” The bar, called the Foxhole, catered to truckers. After leasing out the bar to an attorney, Marty discovered on opening night that the clientele was mostly gay, and realized that this is an audience that’s not being served properly. So, as Andrew recalls, “a straight Jewish Republican from Brooklyn in the 1970s takes over the gay bar.” And with Andrew’s father, Neil Feinstein, they buy the warehouse across the street and turn it into the first Tracks. “As a five-year-old,” Andrew remembers, “my father is in the gay nightclub business and that’s the world I grew up in.”

Andrew eventually took over operation of Tracks, which has since been relocated to the heart of RiNo. But before that chapter of his career, Andrew achieved success in a very different field. As a student at Emory University in Atlanta, Andrew was a business major and a cartoonist. His comic strip, “Girls and Sports”, expanded to 50 college newspapers throughout the country. Wanting to work in animation and envisioning his comic strip “as the next Simpsons,” Andrew moved to Los Angeles. “By day”, Andrew says, “I worked for Nickelodeon and Warner Brothers, and drew my comic strip on nights and weekends.” The comic strip grew to nearly 400 general newspapers, including the Denver Post. “It's about two guys in their 20s, based on me and my best friend.” Fox Sports turned the comic strip into a series of animated shorts on its Fox Sports Network and also commissioned a pilot for what would have been the first-ever prime time animated show on a sports network. But when the financial crisis hit combined with the newspaper consolidations of the late OOs, Andrew started losing newspaper clients and lost his opportunity with Fox Sports.

At that point, looking to the future Marty invited Andrew to return home to Denver and become his partner. “Marty gave me a lot of good advice,” Andrew says. “One of the best pieces of advice he gave me was to go to go to neighborhood meetings, engage with the community. That’s exactly what I did and within a year was asked to be chairman of the RiNo community board.” Andrew’s community involvement includes a profound commitment to social justice. “To be disqualified or discriminated against because of your skin color or sexual orientation, it hurts me to the core”. In November 2017, Andrew was honored with the Anti-Defamation League’s prestigious Torch of Liberty Award.