Jimmy Funkhouser expects a swirl of conflicting emotions Sunday when he closes the doors to his store on Tennyson Street for the last time to make way for demolition and redevelopment, a trend that is radically altering the funky character of the Berkeley neighborhood.
“I’ll probably be on the porch crying my eyes out,” said Funkhouser, 36, who opened his Feral outdoor shop in 2016, believing Denver outdoor enthusiasts would embrace an independent alternative to chain retailers.
His dream isn’t dying, though. Thanks to a landlord who saw a win-win investment opportunity and a crowd-funding campaign supported by Funkhouser’s most loyal customers, Feral will be moving three blocks south to be reborn in a former movie theater built in 1908.
With new projects springing up along Tennyson, landlord John Horvat has plans to redevelop the property where Feral has been located in a bungalow built in 1924. Horvat didn’t want to reveal his intentions for the property, but those plans left Funkhouser in a bind, seemingly with no place to go.
Then, at a breakfast meeting when Feral seemed doomed, Horvat asked Funkhouser what his plans were.
Funkhouser said his dream was to move into the former Berkeley Theater, built when Tennyson was an entertainment district adjacent to the original Elitch Gardens more than a century ago. More recently the building was the home for more than 50 years of Flesher-Hinton Music, which moved to Wheat Ridge in 2016.
“I said, ‘This is our community, we’d love to be there, but there’s no way for us to pull it off. We’re probably going to have to close the store,’ ” Funkhouser recalled. “He said, ‘Do you think they’d consider selling it?’ I was like, ‘I don’t have that kind of money.’ He said, ‘Let me go talk to them.’ ”
Horvat bought the building for $1.6 million, confident it was a good investment in a neighborhood with surging property values. He believed in Funkhouser, too.
“If both of those weren’t involved, I wouldn’t have done it,” Horvat said. “It had to be a good investment, and he had to be a good tenant. Both of those things existed. It was a right time, right place type of situation.”
That was only the first hurdle. Funkhouser had to come up with $95,000 to repurpose the interior of the building. That’s where the crowd-funding effort via Indiegogo came in. As of Friday, the online campaign had raised $41,052.
It’s not a charity fundraiser. Funkhouser is offering store perks ranging from lifetime 20 percent store discounts, in return for $200 donations, down to Feral stickers for $10 contributions. Giving customers a chance to feel like stakeholders made more sense to him than taking out a loan and having to pay a bank $3,000 a month in interest.
The relocation of Feral is just the latest change on Tennyson Street, as gentrification is transforming the entire neighborhood.
Spruce for Men, a barbershop and men’s clothier across the street from Feral, is relocating a block south to make way for a new building.
“Everything I’ve been seeing is scraping all of these old, charming buildings with character and building these boxy, flat, huge (buildings),” said Becca Romero, who owns Spruce with her husband. “It’s losing a lot of its charm and personality. I think by the end of the next three years, (the neighborhood is) going to be unrecognizable.”
Eli Cox, who owns a men’s store called Berkeley Supply on the same block, is “very conflicted” by the trend.
“There is unstoppable development, and it could put an end to the grittiness of the neighborhood and the charm it once had,” Cox said. “But it’s hard for me to sit here and knock it with a thriving business because of it.”
The city councilman who represents the neighborhood, Rafael Espinoza, is troubled by what he calls “poorly conceived” housing units along Tennyson and other gentrifying neighborhoods.
“One of the things I wish we could do is keep northwest Denver funky, but market forces and regulations aren’t conducive to supporting and sustaining historic and small local businesses,” Espinoza said. “I am glad, in this case, that it is just a relocation and more of a success story despite the displacement.”
Feral’s move will allow it to grow from 700 square feet to 4,400, affording Funkhouser the space to expand and diversify his inventory. Until now it was mostly limited to hiking and camping gear, but the new store will include ski gear and climbing equipment.
“We won’t have to go to customers and say, ‘We’d love to carry that but don’t have enough room,'” Funkhouser said. “We say that a lot here.”
Funkhouser got his first glimpse of “real mountain peaks” when he visited Colorado eight years ago on a backpacking trip with some buddies. At the time he was living in Evansville, Ind., but when the saw the Continental Divide at the iconic Genesee overlook on Interstate 70, he told his crew, “I love you guys, but I’m leaving you. I’ve got to live here.”
In those days he was working as a regional director for Toys R Us. He sought and received a transfer to Colorado, and when he got here he noticed something perplexing about the local outdoors market. Evansville had two local independent outdoor gear shops, but he didn’t find that here.
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“I was like, ‘Where are they? How is it possible that there are more independent outdoor gear shops in Evansville, Indiana, than Denver, Colorado?’ It blew my mind. I thought they’d be on every corner. I wanted to make that happen.”
He left Toys R Us in 2016, opening Feral that year, and this year he opened a second store in Idaho Springs. He expects to begin renovation of the new Denver location next month, doing much of the work himself. He hopes to reopen there in mid-November.
The new store will have what Funkhouser is calling a “Cottage Industry Lab,” a revolving showcase for Colorado gear manufacturers that chain competitors overlook. Funkhouser also is proud of helping to save a community landmark, a connection to the past in a shifting urban landscape.
“I truly believe it is the crown jewel on Tennyson Street,” Funkhouser said. “We’ve lost so many beautiful buildings.”
