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This 140-year-old church in Denver’s Cole neighborhood is about to become a cafe

Denver Real Estate News - Wed, 08/06/2025 - 15:00

For the first time in decades, a little purple church in Denver’s Cole neighborhood will be open on Sundays. Not for mass or services, but for coffee and wine.

“There’s a need for interesting neighborhood retail around here. It’s an interesting neighborhood, and it’s an interesting property,” said Nathan Beal, a local developer.

Beal runs a one-person shop, St. Bernard Properties, which he started about 20 years ago. The 47-year-old hails from the South, but you wouldn’t know that unless you get some whiskey in him, he said.

He likes to bike around town and left Atlanta for Denver’s more “consistent urban fabric,” which his developments reflect: small-scale infill projects, townhomes and duplexes, which pair well with neighborhood retail. He’s currently renovating a motel on East Colfax and has repurposed a number of other older buildings around town.

His next project, at the corner of Franklin Street and 38th Avenue, will be in that same vein. Beal wants to turn the nearly 140-year-old church into a cafe — a $500,000 to $750,000 cost — and spend $2 million building six townhomes on the vacant lot next door. It will add to the roughly 50 residential units he’s built across the east side of town.

“It’s one I’ve been keeping an eye on, because it’s a funky little building. It’s like this little purple church with an empty lot next door to it,” he said.

Beal purchased the property, which sits on a 6,100-square-foot lot, for $675,000 in October 2021. He petitioned to have it named as a city landmark, a designation it received in 2023.

“I’m a sucker for saving old stuff,” he said.

The 1,650-square-foot onetime Lutheran church was erected by a Swedish community that came to Cole to build Denver’s railroads. It’s currently occupied by an artist. There hasn’t been a church service in 45 years.

Nathan Beal stands outside his 140-year-old church in Cole. (Hayden Kim/BusinessDen)
Beal wants to redo the stucco, “a defining feature” of the property, and build a mezzanine inside that will “bring you up by the roof rafters.” Some of the church’s layers will also be peeled back to expose its wood frame. Local firm Sopher Sparn Architects drew up the plans.

Two blocks from the church, on a sunny Thursday morning, Brandon Painter was busy dishing out coffee from his 1973 Airstream trailer. The storefront for his mobile business, Nowhere Coffee, sat parked outside the old Rock Drill building that day.

Soon, Painter will have somewhere to call home. It will be in Beal’s old church.

“Currently, [if it’s] super cold, probably not here. If it’s super hot, probably not here. So I would say overall, that’s an opportunity. But I think my customers will expect me to be open all the time now,” he quipped.

The 37-year-old hails from Amarillo, Texas, where he said the only thing that happens is “a lot of wind.” He moved to Colorado with five of his friends in a 26-foot U-Haul trailer a week after graduating from high school. Besides a brief stint in Philadelphia working a corporate job, the Mile High City has been home since.

“Cole for me is this little corner of Denver that not a lot of people have explored, and it’s finally developing a little bit and changing. But I have people that lived in Denver their entire lives and had never been to this part of town,” Painter said.

Beal hopes that Painter, whom he met through a mutual friend, will be moved in and serving up brews to the neighborhood by the fall of 2026. The six houses next door, which will range from 800 to 1,400 square feet, should be done by then too. They’ll be designed with a sawtooth-like roof, reflecting the Rock Drill building two blocks away.

“The fact that it’s in the neighborhood that I’ve already built community in, and Nathan is a good dude — which with developers, isn’t always the case — and his other projects that have supported small businesses is pretty important to me too. And it’s a stand-alone building, it’s a historic building,” Painter said.

“All of those were pretty attractive to me.”

RiNo’s new pop-up program aims to fill empty commercial spaces with art

Denver Real Estate News - Wed, 08/06/2025 - 06:00

The RiNo Art District has launched its RiNo Made Pop-Up Program, a new initiative offering $1,500 stipends and temporary access to empty commercial spaces to area artists as part of a larger effort to revive vacant properties and address rising costs in the area.

By helping to subsidize short-term leases, the program pairs artists with unoccupied retail or office spaces for public exhibitions, installations and on-site creation, while also allowing property owners a new way to bring visibility into their spaces.

“(Artists and developers) told us the same thing: retail and gallery spaces are too expensive and it’s hard to keep them full,” said Kiah Butcher, programs manager for RiNo Art District.

“RiNo Made is our response. It connects people who have vacant square footage – often beautiful, brand-new space – with creatives who are looking for opportunities to create and market their work, and it does it in the most RiNo way possible: through creativity, collaboration and responsiveness.”

The RiNo Made Pop-Up located at 2601 Walnut St., Unit 210 in Denver on Aug. 5, 2025. (Photo By Patrick Traylor/The Denver Post)

National real estate company EDENS, which has a major presence in the art district, is the first to join the program by opening its storefront at 2601 Walnut St., Unit 210.

The space will feature work from five local artists: Sam Grabowska, Matt McCall, Navya Mallepeddi, Shadae Hunt and Chris Bristow.

“RiNo is one of the country’s most creatively driven neighborhoods; we see our role here as stewards of that energy,” said Thomas Picarsic, managing director of EDENS Western region.

“From restoring historic buildings to creating space for public art, food, and culture, our focus has always been on supporting what makes this area of Denver so distinct. Partnering with RiNo on this program is one more way we’re supporting street-level vibrancy in the district.”

Additional pop-ups are already in development, with more property owners working with RiNo to finalize future sites.

In a July interview, the nonprofit told The Post that Mortenson, a Minneapolis-based construction company, will also participate in the program.

As part of the pilot launch, the RiNo Made Pop-Up will host open studio hours from 4-8 p.m. every Friday and noon to 3 p.m. Sundays, inviting the public to engage directly with the artists and their work.

In addition, a special Artist Talk will take place from 6-8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 22, offering an informal, moderated discussion where participating artists will share more about their individual practices and creative goals for the residency.

The RiNo Business Improvement District approved $25,000 in funding for the pilot year of RiNo Made Pop-Ups, supporting at least two iterations in 2025. If successful, the art district hopes to expand the program to additional sites next year.

The RiNo Made program is also a complement to the art district’s NO VACANCY program, which is another artist residency program that gives artists access to older buildings typically slated for demolition or adaptive reuse.

RiNo is home to many of Denver’s art galleries, including RedLine, Visions West, William Matthews Studio, Plinth Gallery, Rule Gallery, Rainy Days Gallery, MAE’S and Alto Gallery.

The district also subsidizes more than a dozen affordable studios at ArtPark and RiNo Art District Studios at the Backyard on Blake. Additionally, the district recently completed its second round of Creative Grants to support neighborhood-based artistic and cultural initiatives.

Updated Aug. 6, 2025, at 12:09 p.m.: The stipend amount in the story has been updated.

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Denver metro home sales drop 11% in July as buyers remain cautious

Denver Real Estate News - Tue, 08/05/2025 - 11:16

Home sales in the Denver metro area dropped by 11% in July, as days on market increased and the median sale price fell by 3%.

“The overall economic and consumer environment has experienced significant uncertainty in 2025, which is reflected in the real estate market,” said Amanda Snitker, chair of the Denver Metro Association of Realtors Market Trends Committee in the organization’s monthly report.

“Three years of sluggish sales are putting pressure on prices as buyers remain hesitant.”

July recorded 3,661 sales, down slightly from 4,128 in June, and down 7% from 3,930 in July 2024.

The month’s median close price of $590,000 is down 3% from $610,000 in June and down 2% from $599,990 last July.

Total sales volume of $2.6 billion dropped about 16% from $3 billion in June and is down about 8% from $2.8 billion a year ago.

Days on market spike

At the same time, the median days on market jumped 33% from 18 in June to 24 in July. That number’s up 50% from a year ago, when the median days on market sat at 16 days.

The number of active listings dropped slightly from 14,007 in June to 13,995 in July. But the available inventory is still up 32% from a year ago.

At 13,995, the number of active listings remains below the average of 15,379 for 1985-2024. The record high was 31,989 listings in July 2006, while the record low was 4,056 in 2021.

Summer selling season ends early

Historically, active listings increase about 6% from June to July, so the slight inventory drop last month suggests the seasonal peak is already over.

“There’s a growing perception that listings simply ‘won’t sell.’ Yet year to date, Denver Metro has seen only a 4.2% decrease in sales within this segment compared to the same time last year,” said Andrew Abrams, market trends committee member.

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“The close-price-to-list-price ratio remains stable. The most notable shift is in average days in MLS increased from 33 to 40. This reflects a change in buyer behavior: today’s buyers want homes that are move-in ready, ample time to do due diligence, and the ability to move at their own pace.”

The same is true in the metro’s $750,000 to $999,999 market, where buyers remain intentional, yet cautious, said Michelle Schwinghammer, market trends committee member.

“Buyers continue to search patiently for homes that meet all of their needs, while sellers are becoming better prepared and adjusting to shifting market conditions.”

The news and editorial staffs of The Denver Post had no role in this post’s preparation.

30-year-old Broadway brunch spot to close this weekend

Denver Real Estate News - Tue, 08/05/2025 - 10:32

A restaurant with three decades as a pillar of Broadway in Denver will soon serve its last guests.

The Hornet, which opened in 1995 at 76 Broadway, is preparing to close after a nearly 30-year run, according to a post on Facebook. Its last day will be Saturday, Aug. 9.

A representative from the business could not immediately be reached to discuss the circumstances of the closure, but The Hornet’s social media announcement alluded to the changing dynamics at its building. This spring, an investment group called 76 N Broadway LLC purchased the property and in July, The Hornet’s space was listed for lease.

Despite the changes, BusinessDen previously reported that The Hornet had multiple years left on its lease and the option for an extension. The two-story building is also home to another ground-floor restaurant called Lucky Noodles, which relocated there from East Colfax Avenue in April.

“While many things have changed and become more complicated over the years at 1st & Broadway, we would prefer to celebrate all of the amazing times that you shared with us,” The Hornet posted, in part. “We are profoundly thankful for our incredible neighborhood and this city for supporting our local business over the years. Serving our guests was always our greatest privilege.”

With its bright blue facade, The Hornet was a favorite among the weekend brunch crowd as well as happy hour revelers in the entertainment-focused neighborhood.

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SweatHouz sauna and cold plunge expanding with new location at 38th and Tennyson

Denver Real Estate News - Tue, 08/05/2025 - 06:00

Frank Campise isn’t sweating about his retail space on Tennyson.

The Chicago apartment developer and investor recently leased out the entirety of his 2,700-square-foot retail space at his new building on the corner of 38th Avenue and Tennyson Street to SweatHouz, a cold plunge and sauna spot.

“They seem to be really popular,” Campise said. “We thought having that type of amenity would be good for the building as well as the neighborhood, because there’s not another place like that in the immediate vicinity.”

Campise is one of two principals at Jab Real Estate, which completed the 44-unit 4345 W. 38th Ave. building at the end of last year. Leasing is expected to wrap up in the coming weeks.

SweatHouz did not return multiple requests for comment. The company has an existing Denver location at 2101 S. Broadway and another planned in the Denver Tech Center.

A typical booking involves an infrared sauna, which is slightly cooler than its traditional counterparts. Afterwards, customers can rinse off with a vitamin-C shower, which SweatHouz says benefits skin health, before finishing with a cold plunge. This process can be repeated two or three times in an $80 session. An unlimited monthly membership costs $289.

“People loved the brand and thought it would be a great and different addition to the street instead of another restaurant,” Campise said.

The developer’s building has been a lone bright spot in an otherwise challenging apartment market, he said.

“The market is really soft and I’m still mystified why anyone would start a new construction building right now,” Campise added.

Citywide apartment vacancy stands at 7%, according to the Apartment Association of Metro Denver’s second-quarter report issued last month. That’s up an entire percentage point from the same time last year, and up nearly two-and-a-half percentage points from the decade low of 4.6% in the third quarter of 2021.

Tennyson’s robust retail and apartment market has helped Campise’s building weather the storm a bit. The stretch between 38th and 46th avenues is nearly fully built out and often crowded with pedestrians and shoppers during afternoons and weekends.

But the other crutch for Campise has been his new app, Aigentless, which allows prospective tenants to do self-guided tours of the building at virtually any time of day. It leased 30% of the units at his Tennyson project, and 70% at one of his buildings in Chicago. He expects it to help at his next project delivering September at 2935 Zuni St. in LoHi.

“Those units would probably be vacant if we didn’t have the software,” he said.

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Metro Denver home prices take a dip in July on weaker sales

Denver Real Estate News - Tue, 08/05/2025 - 06:00

Metro Denver home prices moved lower in July as both sellers and buyers alike pulled back, according to a monthly update from the Denver Metro Association of Realtors.

The median price of a detached or stand-alone home that sold in metro Denver stood at $650,000, which is down 2.26% from the $665,000 median price seen in June and 0.76% from the median price of $655,000 a year earlier. The average price, which is influenced by more expensive homes, decreased by 4.7% month-over-month and 1.08% year-over-year.

Condos and townhomes, which have seen weak prices for several months, had a median sales price of $390,000 in July, which is down 2.5% on the month and 6% annually. The average sales price of a condo/townhome was $425,192, which is down 4% from June and 6.9% from a year earlier.

“The overall economic and consumer environment has experienced significant uncertainty in 2025, which is reflected in the real estate market,” said Amanda Snitker, chairwoman of the DMAR Market Trends Committee and a Realtor. “Three years of sluggish sales are putting pressure on prices as buyers remain hesitant. Therefore, sellers need to align expectations with market realities.”

Overpricing or underpreparing a home can lead to extended days on market and price reductions, she said.

The number of sales is down 11.3% from June and 6.84% from July 2024. But new listings were down also, a sign of seller hesitancy and the end of the peak summer selling season. Those dropped 9.6% on the month, but are still up 4% on the year.

Fewer listings and a slowing pace of sales kept the number of active listings, which had been rising sharply this year, in check. There were 13,995 homes and condos available on the market at the end of July, compared to 14,007 at the end of June and 10,584 last year. The slight decline contrasts with a 5.6% average increase seen between June and July.

Last month, half of the listings went under contract within 24 days, compared to 18 days in June and 16 days a year earlier.

The Zillow Home Value Index for June recorded a 4.1% annual decline for metro Denver, while the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices for May listed Denver as one of four major metros out of 20 that it tracks with depreciating prices in May. The loss was small, 0.1%, but it contrasted with a 2.3% gain nationally.

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Douglas County’s Zebulon sports megacomplex could break ground this fall. Will it be ‘iconic,’ or a money pit?

Denver Real Estate News - Tue, 08/05/2025 - 06:00

The plans for the Zebulon Regional Sports Complex are huge.

On the drawing board are four baseball fields, three ice rinks and a pair of soccer fields. Eight to 10 basketball courts — which can be converted into 20 volleyball courts or 30 pickleball courts — are also in the mix. Add in a 400,000-square-foot, domed indoor sports facility that will house more fields for year-round play, and you get a sense of Zebulon’s scale once it’s built in northern Douglas County.

And that’s just the first phase, which could break ground as soon as this fall on a 50-acre parcel just southeast of the master-planned Sterling Ranch community. Later phases could bring as many as eight additional sports fields, along with restaurants, shops and a hotel — in what Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon calls a potential “economic development corridor.”

“We want something that is iconic,” Laydon told The Denver Post.

But the sheer size of the project — and the paucity of financial details surrounding it — have some residents in this politically conservative county asking questions. Among the concerns about the project, which is planned to the southeast of Chatfield Reservoir, is how much the county might end up shelling out and how much private partners will benefit.

“We don’t know how much this is going to cost and who’s going to pay for it,” said Sudee Floyd, who lives in the house her father built more than 50 years ago in the nearby Plum Valley Heights neighborhood.

Floyd, 64, has worries about contamination from an old dynamite-making plant that operated for decades at the proposed Zebulon site. She also wonders whether Douglas County taxpayers might be left holding the bag should things go south.

County leaders plan to tap its Parks, Trails, Historic Resources and Open Space Fund to help cover some of the early costs of the Zebulon project. Launched in 1994 with a 0.17% sales and use tax, the fund was re-upped by voters in 2022. Over the next 15 years, it is projected to bring in around $330 million.

Douglas County has already pledged just over $800,000 to do engineering and infrastructure studies for Zebulon. A final development partner has not been chosen but Luke Taylor, a managing member of KT Development, was one of the speakers at a county-hosted town hall in April regarding the project.

KT developed the Blue Sport Stable, a 186,000-square-foot sports megacomplex in Superior. Taylor hopes his firm lands the contract to build Zebulon but bidding is still underway. He declined to comment further.

Floyd said the speed at which the county is moving on the project, which was announced just four months ago, reminds her of the commissioners’ recent effort to bring home rule to the county — an initiative that was heavily criticized for being opaque and rushed.

Voters overwhelmingly rejected the home rule effort at the ballot box in June.

“This is moving way too fast. No one is showing their cards,” Floyd said.

But Lynn Moffett, who has lived in Sterling Ranch for four years and sits on the board of a metro district there, said there are few amenities near the blossoming community, which is planned to include more than 12,000 homes at full buildout.

The South Suburban Recreation Center on County Line Road to the northeast is 20 minutes away “on a good day.” And dining and shopping opportunities in the neighborhood are few, she said.

“We have nothing — and this county is growing like crazy,” Moffett said. “It’s important to have a facility families can send their children to. We all pay taxes in our county — we just want a piece of the pie.”

Likely public-private partnership

Discussions about adding to Douglas County’s inventory of ballfields have been happening for at least a year.

“It was very clear to us that there was this outcry — especially among youth — who wanted more space to play,” Laydon said. “They simply do not have enough space.”

Earlier, there was talk of building a sports complex with playing fields in Highlands Ranch’s 202-acre Wildcat Regional Park, which is owned by the county. But that plan was met with vociferous opposition from residents last year.

Douglas County agreed to transfer the parcel to the Highlands Ranch Community Association in a deal that is expected to be finalized in coming weeks. In turn, the association has agreed to develop a trail network for recreational use at Wildcat.

Meanwhile, Brock Smethills, the president of the Sterling Ranch Development Company, contacted the county about building a sports complex a bit farther south. A 50-acre land donation from Sterling Ranch to Douglas County, the details of which are still being hammered out, started the process.

“We’re giving up some of our best land for the sports complex,” Smethills said. “What we’re asking for in return is an exercise facility our homeowners can use free of charge.”

Douglas County agreed to take the lead in shepherding the project’s first phase.

So far, it has signed a $325,000 consulting contract with Felsburg, Holt and Ullevig to look at potential road infrastructure at the site. It also hired an owner’s representative for just over $70,000. In late July, the commissioners ordered a $410,000 land development study from engineering firm Kimley-Horn.

From the beginning, the county has advertised the construction of the Zebulon Regional Sports Complex as a public-private partnership.

“You need something vertical, you need something there to get people to invest,” Smethills said.

The county, Laydon said, will spearhead the project and then seek out private partners to help build out Zebulon. Completion of all phases of the project, potentially including hotels and restaurants, could take as long as a decade.

The view from a rooftop deck looking north and west toward the mountains on the fourth floor of a model home in Prospect Village at Sterling Ranch in Douglas County, Colorado, on April 15, 2024. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post) A ‘fancy facility for club teams’?

Christine Pomme, a Parker mother whose 12-year-old son plays on the Slammers club baseball team as a first baseman and pitcher, said the need for a facility like Zebulon is clear.

“It’s hard to get a field for practice, let alone for tournaments,” Pomme said.

Her son’s team, the Slammers Yetis, typically have to travel to Centennial for indoor practice and to Highlands Ranch High School for outdoor drills. The indoor facility gets crowded, Pomme said, while the softball fields at the high school aren’t regulation size for baseball.

“The potential of having a full-size outdoor field for practice is really appealing,” she said.

Floyd, the dubious neighbor, wants to know how open and accessible Zebulon will be to county residents. Will it be an exclusive operation primarily catering to expensive organized sports teams, she asked, or more of a community recreation center for those who want to work out and slap a pickleball around with friends?

“Who gets to use them?” she said. “Why should my tax dollars go towards a fancy facility for club teams? This isn’t just some baseball field — this is extravagant.”

Laydon told The Post that Zebulon “would be available for everyone to use.”

Floyd also worries about the state of the land at the Zebulon site, which for more than 60 years was the home of the E.I. Du Pont de Nemours dynamite manufacturing plant. It closed down more than 50 years ago.

In 2022, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment issued the company a decision letter stating that any contaminants at the site “do not pose a threat to human health and environment, and contamination will continue to decline.”

CDPHE stated in its letter that “no further remediation is required at the site.”

“Without that clean bill of health,” Laydon said, “we wouldn’t consider it.”

Other concerns with Zebulon revolve around the county’s use of the open space and parks fund to finance the early stages of the project. Former Commissioner Lora Thomas, who had a rocky relationship with her colleagues before leaving her elected post before her term expired last December, said she has “seen no plan for how this project is funded.”

“I’m not sure ‘parks’ is a multimillion-dollar sports complex with mixed-use amenities that benefit Sterling Ranch,” Thomas said.

The county, she said, “has no business” spending money on Zebulon “until partners are identified and at the table with their checkbooks.”

She pointed to the troubled Future Legends sports complex under construction in Windsor, parts of which were ordered by a judge last month to remain shuttered until project leaders addressed safety concerns at the facility. She sees that as a warning shot of what could happen at Sterling Ranch.

“A solid financial plan must be developed before a shovel of dirt is moved,” Thomas said.

She also pointed to a citizen survey conducted last year by Douglas County that revealed a “mega-sports complex” was identified by 33% of respondents as the “least appealing option” of a list of potential amenities. The survey also showed that just 22% of respondents were dissatisfied with the number of youth sports facilities in the county.

Projected $1.3 billion impact

In May, the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation and the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce released an economic and fiscal impact analysis of the Zebulon project and the surrounding business activity it is expected to spur.

The analysis estimated that from 2026 to 2036, the sports complex would have an economic impact of $1.3 billion, including $528.4 million in labor income. Nearly 1,800 jobs would be generated “through construction and ongoing operations,” the report stated.

County Manager Doug DeBord said more clarity on the project should be coming in the next few weeks, including better cost estimates and potential partnerships with the private sector.

As for Moffett, the Sterling Ranch resident, she says her community is starved of eateries and entertainment venues, which the Zebulon project is expected to attract. Right now, Sterling Ranch has a microbrewery, a coffee shop and a collection of food trucks that roll through.

“We have nothing,” she said.

With Sterling Ranch about 20% built out to its ultimate population of 35,000, Moffett said demand for places where kids can play and participate in sports will only increase. The recent debut of pickleball courts in Burns Park was a hit.

“As soon as we cut the ribbon, there were people playing,” she said.

A former soccer player who competed at the collegiate level in Europe, Moffett said she’d be one of the first through the doors at Zebulon when it’s up and running.

“I already bought myself a pair of ice skates,” she said.

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