After a year and a half of disruption along Colfax Avenue between the Capitol building and Colorado Boulevard, there’s light at the end of the traffic cones.
City officials told Denverite that Colfax between Broadway and Colorado Boulevard is on schedule to fully reopen by the end of the year. For the first time since late 2024, this portion of Colfax will be free of work crews and construction fences.
The remade section of the storied, gritty “stroad” will be noticeably different. Instead of two lanes going both directions, Colfax will instead be bisected by two bus-only lanes in the middle. And instead of boring, old (often unsheltered) bus stops, Colfax will feature steel arches at each station, which will provide shade and shelter for transit riders.
The overhaul is meant to benefit bus riders, drivers and pedestrians alike. The narrowed space for drivers lanes will make traffic on Colfax — one of the most dangerous roads in Denver — move slower and safer. The dedicated bus lanes means once fully operational, the 15 and 15L routes will run every 4.3 minutes.
But construction has been rough on businesses that make up Colfax. While the completion of this segment offers reason for hope, many are still worried about life after BRT.
Meanwhile, construction on the next segments — reaching farther east to Aurora — is just getting underway. And the full project won’t be complete until 2027.
Businesses have closed, but it hasn’t been apocalyptic.
Business owners began raising alarms soon after construction started in October 2024. Many said that the never-ending maze of construction deterred customers, leading to record-low sales.
“We had a record low. The lowest [sales] we ever did was two days ago,” Mac Vo, who is part of the family that owns Bourbon Grill, said in January 2025. Their sales for that day: “$165.”
We checked on city data to see how severe the impact has been.
In three business improvement districts along the BRT route — the Colfax Ave. BID between Grant and Josephine; Bluebird BID between St. Paul and Colorado; and Mayfair BID between Eudora and Monaco — openings and closures were about equal.
Ten businesses in those borders have closed since October 2024, with nine new businesses opening to take their places. New businesses include a mead bar at Marion Street, several new coffee shops and clothing boutiques.
Closures have actually slowed in those districts. In the post-COVID landscape, an average of 20 businesses closed in those stretches each year. But the flipside is true, too — openings have similarly slowed.
Along Colfax Ave. BID’s stretch of the corridor, occupancy rates have actually improved since October 2024, according to executive director Frank Locantore.
"We've experienced the normal churn of business openings and closings during the BRT construction. Not a single business in our District has closed because of the construction. While I don't want to imply that everything is rosy with our businesses, the occupancy rate improved during construction,” he told Denverite in a statement.
Still, some business owners said BRT construction pushed them to the brink. Alex Barakos, the general manager for late night diner Pete’s Kitchen, said the worst of it was summer 2025, when the classic eatery posted a cry for help on Instagram.
“We were over 10% down and really struggling, really hurting, and we put that out and the city definitely showed up,” he said. “They came from all neighborhoods and showed up to support us for not just the week, I mean for weeks and weeks to come.”
Now, things have mostly “leveled out”, Barakos said. Barring any major crisis, Barakos sees the light at the end of the tunnel, but doesn’t think they’re fully out of it until the full BRT line is running with buses every four minutes.
Obeid Kaido, who runs Shish Kabob Grill with the rest of his family, said the city isn’t doing enough to help businesses. The city is offering one-time grants of up to $15,000 to qualifying businesses. He compared it to a “wet Band-Aid”, noting that his family — the sole employees of the restaurant — took pay cuts to stay afloat last year.
“A wet Band-Aid does nothing,” he said. “It was such an insult. It's almost deceiving. I honestly thought that grant would actually help. I really did.”
Meanwhile, construction is intensifying farther east.
While businesses between Broadway and Colorado Boulevard will lose the fences soon, businesses farther east are in the thick of construction.
But in some ways, they’re the lucky ones. They’re operating in a city that is more used to the snags BRT can cause, and with a city that is more experienced.
“We've been really fortunate that so much of our clientele come from the neighborhoods, which would be north or south of Colfax,” said Ali Hoskins-Kelly, a co-owner of Fiction Beer Company. “So we're really grateful that the construction hasn't hampered our business too, too much.”
In the opening months of the BRT project, the city took criticism for failing to support businesses. And while many still aren’t happy, the city has found success with two new strategies: arch lift parties and the Fax Pass.
Colfax queer sports bar Tight End hosted the first “arch party” to celebrate the raising of the first of the BRT stations, which are built around huge white arches.
Then the city started organizing arch parties for subsequent milestones. Shannon Bowers has attended all but one of them.
“I think the reason that I come out so often is because I get to explore little pockets of Colfax that I don't normally get to see being on the other side, being on the west side of Colorado [Boulevard],” Bowers said at an arch party at Fiction Beer.
The Fax Pass was launched to incentivize residents to visit more Colfax businesses. The pass is a booklet that visitors can use to get discounts and stickers at some businesses. Those stickers can be exchanged for prizes.
Over 100 businesses are participating in the Fax Pass program. Holly Nugent, an avid bus rider who lives off Colfax and doesn’t own a car, was the first to get her booklet filled out.
“I used it as an opportunity to explore my neighborhood,” Nugent said.
Nugent’s prizes so far are a Colfax mug and a tote bag. But she finished it so quickly that the city hasn’t yet finalized the prizes.
“We're thinking of other ways to immortalize people who maybe complete a full book,” said Sam Stavish, a public relations consultant helping Denver run the program. “So maybe somewhere there's going to be maybe a plaque or something where you get your name etched in it as a Colfax legend.”
People are eager to see how the dust settles.
Amy Beres, the director of programs at the Fax Partnership, said that even with more people out supporting businesses, it will be tough, especially now for businesses closer to the Aurora border.
“I think especially in this section of East Colfax businesses tend to be pretty small,” she said. “I think it is going to be tough and it will be tougher because like I said, they are businesses that are already operating on pretty thin margins.”
Some businesses said they won’t be out of the woods until years after construction ends. Many said that, as with COVID, government support could be needed for years.
On top of BRT, many alluded to the ongoing struggles of small businesses in 2026. In Denver, the city is poised to reignite a contentious debate about the tipped minimum wage — a conversation that has already started a schism in the restaurant industry.
Even with the end of construction in sight for Barakos, he knows it's out of the frying pan, into the fire.
“The chips are stacked against small businesses and just everything makes it very difficult to operate in Denver,” Barakos said.
