By Sarah Tesfai, for Denverite
A former drive-through bank that has sat unused on Leetsdale Drive for about a decade will soon be a drive-through coffee shop. Leetsdale, a fixture of the Denver landscape, is undergoing changes along with the rest of the city, according to Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer.
Three-to-four hundred apartment units are coming into the corner of Leetsdale and Holly. Senior care, assisted living, and memory care facilities are set to be built south of the Mexican Consulate.
A lot of development is coming into an already high density area. Sawyer, who represents the area, worries that if not enough thought is put into the supporting infrastructure, such as how people will enter and exit Leetsdale, there may be serious issues.
To become a coffee shop, the former bank site had to be rezoned with approval from Denver City Council. In a city changing as quickly as Denver is, that can sometimes put council in a predicament: deciding whether a rezoning will be beneficial to the surrounding community can be difficult.
On Leetsdale, a state-run highway that borders different municipalities including Denver, Glendale and more of Arapahoe County, deciding on the best use of space is challenging.
When it comes to Leetsdale's Ziggi's, that shows up in concerns about traffic impacts of a drive-through coffee shop -- an area that Sawyer says was given a lot of attention. Dana Hunsinger, the Leetsdale Ziggi's franchisee, says they plan for at least 30 cars a stack, and have the expectation of high traffic built into their use of space and procedures. This is not only needed because of the nature of Leetsdale, but also because this Ziggi's is projected to be the busiest location.
Ziggi's had its beginnings in downtown Longmont and has since grown to multiple locations throughout Colorado and the U.S. Hunsinger was the first to bring the franchise to Denver, starting with a Colfax and Garrison location. Soon Denver will have six locations, two of which are already open.
"We want our staff to know your name," Hunsinger says. She hopes to bring a sense of community to the Leetsdale location, which she says could be open early next year.
