Ryan Cobbins takes issue when he hears talk about a lack of black-owned businesses in Five Points.
Whatever is going on over on Larimer Street — the main drag for the River North Art District that, since being formed in 2005, has changed the face and, for some, the name of the west side of Five Points — the owner of Coffee at The Point says African-American entrepreneurship is alive and well on Welton Street.
“There is African-American ownership here right now and more is coming,” said Cobbins, a black man who moved to Denver from Virginia more than a dozen years ago. “I can count 10 black-owned businesses between 26th and 29th street right now.”
Cobbins needn’t look far for an example.
Courtney Samuel and his wife, Jennifer, moved their personal training and fitness studio, Bodies by Perseverance, into a low-slung building at the corner of 29th and Welton in August after 17 years in the Uptown and Ballpark areas. Samuel called the opportunity to operate a business in a historic cultural district once known as the “Harlem of the West” humbling and motivation to work harder. The Aurora native remembers when it wasn’t that way.
“When I was growing up, Five Points wasn’t a place you were hanging out. It was gangbanging down here,” he said. “We came down for Juneteenth and that was about it.”
Now?
“I mean, it’s like a new renaissance,” he said. “It truly is.”
He notes that nowadays, the neighborhood demographic has changed.
Between 2011-17, the number of black people who lived in the 80205 ZIP code that covers Five Points and other portions of northeast Denver fell from 7,932 to 5,906, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Over that period, the number of white people in the area rose from 15,280 to 22,175. The data did not differentiate between whites and Latinos.
It’s different, but it doesn’t bother Samuel.
“I’m all about community, and I wish we could see more of that, where all of us come together as a community,” he said.
At the five-pointed intersection that gives the neighborhood its name, the long-slumbering Rossonian Hotel is preparing to wake up. And prominent members of Denver’s black community will be there when it does.
The landmark structure that once saw jazz icons, including Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington, play its lounge was bought by Palisade Partners, a development company run by Paul Books, a white man, for $6 million in August 2017. In April of last year, Books and project partners announced plans to revive the Rossonian and build a nine-story, mixed-use building on the corner of 26th and Welton. Denver’s favored son and basketball legend Chauncey Billups signed on to operate a club/restaurant/bar in the storied hotel.
Billups, in his comments that evening, directly addressed the tension inherent in the neighborhood’s African-American heritage and the influx of new investment from developers like Palisade.
“Like all of you guys, I’ve seen the city change in a major way,” Billups said. “I don’t think it’s a negative thing. The only negative thing about it is if they buy it all up and don’t partner with us.”
In the more than a year since that event, work hasn’t yet begun on the Rossonian project. A refined set of plans — which will grow the hotel from 41 to 83 rooms and the jazz club from 150 seats to 300 via a new addition in the middle of the block — are scheduled for review by Denver landmark preservation officials June 4. If all goes smoothly, work could begin about a year from now, Palisade officials say.
The neighboring building is expected to arrive much sooner and make an impact in its own right.
Named the Hooper, for Five Points business leader club owner Benny Hooper, the project broke ground in April. When completed in 2021, it will feature 103 apartments, including 78 “micro” units aimed at lower-income renters, as well as two- and three-bedroom units. It will have a fitness center, rooftop lounge, community kitchen and more than 30,000 square feet of office space.
On the ground floor, 6,400 square feet have been set aside for the first Busboys and Poets location outside of Washington, D.C. Founded and owned by Iraqi-American entrepreneur and activist Andy Shallal and named in honor of the black poet Langston Hughes, the business is part restaurant, part bookstore, part event space.
“Every detail of the Hooper is meant to foster a sense of community and ownership in Five Points, empowering this neighborhood to build upon its diverse and inclusive culture,” Books said in a news release last month.
Palisade is the lead developer on both projects, but African-American investment will be part of both. Recently formed Five Points Development Corp. is an investor in the Hooper and co-developer on the Rossonian project. It is a subsidiary of the Flyfisher Group, a community investment entity created by African-American philanthropist Matthew Burkett.
“Along with Palisade Partners, we want to make sure that this project is a success, not just from a real estate perspective but from a usage perspective,” Haroun Cowans, Five Points Development’s managing director, said of the Hooper.
Cowans, born in Boulder but raised in northeast Denver, has owned, operated and worked for a number of businesses along Welton Street the last 20 years. While working for influential neighborhood developer Carl Bourgeois, Cowans developed a relationship with Busboys and Poets and helped bring it to the Hooper.
Five Points Development owns other buildings on Welton. The company is Samuel’s landlord at Bodies By Perseverance. (Burkett is a mentor of Samuel’s.) In August, it bought Five Points Plaza, home to the Welton Street Cafe and Spangalang Brewery. The brewery now hosts bimonthly “community mashups” led by Five Points Development staffer Norman Harris — just one of the things the young company aims to do to strengthen its ties to the community, Cowans said.
This year, Harris will grow the annual Juneteenth Festival on Welton Street from one day to two. The company has plans to bring young people into the neighborhood this summer to learn about real estate, Five Points history, transformation and preservation.
“Our whole thing as Five Points Developer Corp. is, how do you make sure that the community is there every step of the way and that there is a sense of not only pride but ownership as well as thoughtfulness?” Cowans said.
“Preserve our history”
The Hooper groundbreaking follows another less visible change along the Welton Street corridor. The Five Points Business District has ceased operating for lack of funding, according to now-former executive director Tracy Winchester. The nonprofit economic development organization has essentially been replaced by the business improvement district.
That district, or BID, is a special taxing entity established by neighborhood voters in 2017. It runs the length of Welton essentially from 20th Street to the light-rail stop on Downing Street. Money collected through it funds special events, maintenance, infrastructure and marketing in the cultural district. Right now, the BID brings in about $150,000 a year — enough to fund those operations but not pay a staff, Winchester said.
“Ultimately, the BID will probably get to about $300,000 a year, but that is going to take another four or five years to get to that point,” Winchester said. “With every business that comes in here, that will put more money into the BID and then they will have full-time staff.”
She may be interviewing for new jobs, but Winchester isn’t upset with the way things are growing on Welton Street. This was how it was designed to work when the Five Points Business District was founded in 2010, she said. First came more housing — projects such as the Welton Park Apartments at 2300 Welton and other Palisade Partners efforts such as the Lydian and Wheatly buildings. Now more businesses are popping up to serve the new residents. When Winchester joined the district in 2011, Welton was dotted with vacant lots and blighted properties.
“The thing that makes Welton special is the fact that African-American property owners didn’t sell out,” she said. “It is a wonderful thing that we are able to preserve our history.”
Not everyone is in favor of the new look Welton has taken on during the past decade. Maedella Stiger and her husband, Franklin, have owned and operated the Franklin Stiger Afro Styling Barber Shop at 2755 Welton St. since 1980.
“I don’t like what all these big, old high-rise buildings do cutting off the view of the mountains,” she said. “To me, you know, I’m not familiar with this. I’m more used to small mom-and-pop shops along Welton Street. I like that a lot better.”
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Stiger sits on the Five Points BID board, but said the influx of new development and money for neighborhood upkeep hasn’t done much to boost her shop’s bottom line. When a business has been around as long as Stiger’s, its clientele is “already established,” she said.
For Ryan Cobbins, the BID was a critical step in legitimizing the Welton Street corridor and setting it up to become a destination area in the same vein as LoDo or Colfax. Change is never easy, but he remembers how sorely the neighborhood needed change when he opened his doors in late 2010. Now he feels it is on the right path.
“In the end, I don’t want people to come down here because we’re black-owned,” he said. “I want people to come here because great stuff is happening.”
