APARTMENTS COULD REPLACE BONNIE BRAE TAVERN

It’s been serving up food and drinks in the Denver neighborhood it shares a name with for parts of nine decades, but now the Bonnie Brae Tavern’s days may be numbered.

Development plans submitted to the city in December lay out of a vision a three-story apartment building that would replace the restaurant and two neighboring shops in the 700 block of South University Boulevard.

If built as proposed, the 40-foot tall building would contain 43 apartments and more than 16,000 square feet of street-level space for businesses.

Rumors are already swirling in the neighborhood as to what retailers have their eyes on the south Denver commercial block that is home to other longtime businesses including Bonnie Brae Ice Cream and the

Saucy Noodle Italian restaurant.

Bonnie Brae Tavern co-owner Michael Dire emphasized that nothing is certain at this point.

“It’s possible that this might not happen,” Dire said of the mixed-use project.

The document on file with the city is a concept plan, officials say. Submitting one is the first step in the site planning review process. Such plans can change dramatically or be dropped entirely before construction takes place, as demonstrated by an 81-story skyscraper project proposed for the city’s central business district in 2017. The developer in that case never closed on a deal to buy the land.

Dire co-owns the Bonnie Brae Tavern with his cousin, Rick. They’re the third generation of the family to own and operate the establishment, which advertises its find foods and cocktails in red neon letters on the front of the building. Opened by his grandfather Carl on June 6, 1934, Michael

Dire’s children are now deeply involved in the family business as well.

“This wasn’t an easy decision for us,” Dire said of moving toward redevelopment, a process that would coincide with the sale of the property. “My cousin Rick and I run it. We put our hearts and souls into this place, and we’re kind of going through a grieving period.”

The decision to look for an exit was driven in part by the challenges of running a restaurant in Denver these days, Dire said. At Bonnie Brae Tavern, those challenges include a property tax bill that shot up by $30,000 two years ago, higher labor costs in a tight job market and fewer diners coming in to fill its turquoise vinyl booths.

The Campus Lounge, just across the street from Bonnie Brae Tavern at 701 S. University, has reopened and failed under two different ownership groups in the two years since its longtime owner and former

University of Denver hockey player Jim Wiste died in January 2018.

In addition to the tavern building, the concept plan covers the retail space next door, occupied by the In & Out Cleaners dry cleaning business, and the standalone building on the corner of University of East Ohio Avenue. The building is home to a location of Wish

Gifts, a boutique gift shop. In total, the collection of properties add up to about three-quarters of an acre.

The Dire family took the first steps toward redevelopment last spring when they applied for nonhistoric status for the tavern building. It’s a designation that clears the way for demolition without additional review. The city awarded a certificate of demolition eligibility on May 1. That certificate expires on May 1, 2024, if no additional steps are taken, city officials say.

Another storied Denver restaurant, Tom’s Diner at 601 E. Colfax Ave., became a flashpoint in the debate between property rights vs. historic preservation last year when a collection of Denver residents moved to make it a city landmark against the wishes of its owner, Tom Messina. After 20 years of running the business, Messina was ready to sell the property to a developer who planned to raze it an build an eight-story apartment building in its place. City officials eventually sided with Messina, but last month it was announced he had changed his mind and is instead working with an Ohio real estate company that will preserve the building, now on the National Register of Historic Places.

The key difference between the Bonnie Brae Tavern and Tom’s Diner is that no one submitted a historic preservation application for the tavern building.