The employee-owners of the Fancy Tiger Crafts Co-op were hoping to stay in Denver when it became clear they needed to leave the space on South Broadway that housed their yarn, needles and classes for almost two decades.
That didn't happen — their rent in Baker doubled, so they needed to leave.
But they did end up happy with where they landed.
It turned out that their new block, further down Broadway in the heart of Englewood, was a refuge for other businesses fleeing high overhead.
"When we found this space, we were like, 'Well, it's just outside of Denver. It's downtown Englewood. It's three or four miles south, whatever,'" recalled Marta Johnson, one of those co-owners. "We're still on Broadway."
They're not the only ones making the move.
Mutiny Information Cafe recently announced they plan to relocate down the block from Fancy Tiger's new location, thanks to rising rent. Treelotta Fabrics & Craft Supplies made a similar move a few years ago.
Fellow Traveler, which opened in the area in 2022, was opened by a longtime bartender at Sputnik.
There's a growing center of gravity in Englewood. Is it a bad omen for Denver's piece of South Broadway?
Back in 2020, we canvassed businesses on Fancy Tiger's old block in Baker to see how everyone was doing during the COVID era. Complaints about landlords and high rent abounded.
Erika Righter, owner of the Hope Tank gift shop, told us then that she worried all of these small businesses were in danger.
Hope Tank was eventually forced from the neighborhood. So was the nearby Sol Tribe tattoo shop, albeit more recently, a few years after the murder of founder Alicia Cardenas destabilized the business. Barry's on Broadway, a longtime watering hole next door, also closed due to tricky finances.
Meanwhile, visible poverty has become a point of conflict in the corridor over the last few years.
Johnson said she and her Fancy Tiger co-owners have no beef with their old landlord. They get it, Denver is more expensive than ever.
And it's helped that they found a budding business community in Englewood.
"Yeah, being not in Denver isn't a huge deal," she said.
But Denver City Council member Flor Alvidrez, who presides over the district, said these relocations are "concerning." There's a certain "character" that's lost when a small business leaves, she told us, especially because she worries only well-financed tenants will be able to afford to replace them.
"Businesses close and open. That's a part of time. But what scares me is that the ability for someone that's not wealthy to start a business is going down," she said. "New businesses will come, but will they be snazzy investors or will they be a local person that's just opening their dream?"
Those super-local ventures may yet survive in Denver, but it might take some creative thinking.
Joe Phillips is the ex-Sputnik bartender who opened Fellow Traveler in Englewood a few years ago.
But he's not finished with his old employer. This week, he inked the final paperwork to buy Sputnik from his old bosses.
He's encouraged to see Englewood's main street growing — it's a good sign for Fellow Traveler. But he's not sold on the idea that those good tidings have come at Denver's expense. Broadway may be in flux, but it's not finished.
"I've been going to South Broadway for over 20 years, and I've seen the changes. When Punch Bowl [Social] opened up, we all thought it was the end of the world and we were like, 'Well, South Broadway is over now, it's just going to be the bros and the Chads and all that shit.' But it survived and it found a new era," he told us. "I'm doubling down on that side of Broadway."
Alvidrez told us there is assistance available for local proprietors, mini-grants for micro-businesses and federal money issued by the state. At the city level, she said she's working to make it easier for businesses to expand into parking lots, as they did during the pandemic, so they might squeeze more cash out of fixed open hours.
But she admitted that City Council can't control the whole economy. She said small local enterprises might need to share space on corridors like Broadway to afford the rent, or try to diversify their offerings.
"A good example of that, I think, is Molecule Effect, where they are a bar at night, but they're a coffee shop during the day. You can only make so much money on coffee," she said. "We do have to evolve. And that does mean finding other parts to cut your costs."
Meanwhile, Englewood has mostly welcomed these economic refugees to their downtown.
Nick Perry purchased Edward's Tobacco Shop, a few doors down from Fancy Tiger's new spot, and its building about four years ago. All of this new interest, he said, is a good sign.
"You can definitely see that this neighborhood's on the upswing. It kind of feels like maybe this could become the next Tennyson, or that kind of shopping district. If you go around the neighborhoods, you'll see it's being gentrified, a lot of scrapes, a lot of new builds," he told us. "There's a big push from the city, and there's a downtown development committee, that are really starting to put a lot of resources into this area."
While we didn't get a hold of anyone with the city of Englewood for this story, everyone we spoke to in their downtown Broadway corridor said they were happy with the ways local government was supporting their ventures.
Johnson said she's met most of her new neighbors, many of whom were excited to connect. She's hopeful they'll gel into a support network as they get their footing. (Fancy Tiger is still relying on a crowdfunding campaign to cover their moving costs.)
Phillips said he's looking forward to Mutiny moving in next door. Their exit from Baker will probably impact Sputnik's business, but it will be a boon for Fellow Traveler.
He views all of these moves, he added, as more of an "expansion" of Broadway rather than a death knell. But Englewood, he added, will need affordable housing, and a lot of it, to really reach economic viability.
"I'm excited about the changes going on here. My one fear is, even if every storefront in downtown Englewood was the coolest place, it's not going to change the availability of housing in this area," he said. "The density in this area is not built to handle a real vibrant downtown community."
Wes Champion, who's owned retail shops here long enough to remember when the old Cinderella City Mall made this one of the busiest business areas in the metro, said that additional housing development is probably inevitable. He just suspects it will have to wait until the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates.
"This is going to all turn into small retail stores with housing," Champion said. "It's just a matter of time."
Real estate in Englewood, in turn, may heat up like it did in Denver. But Perry said he's not worried about all this new demand making it more expensive to exist there.
"We're years and years away from it becoming like what they're escaping in Denver," he told us. "We're a long ways from that."
