A rendering of the proposed development at 13th Avenue and Shoshone Street. (Courtesy Thrive Development Co.)
A Denver development company is looking to breathe new life into a pair of Lincoln Park warehouses it bought nearly three years ago.
Thrive Development Co. has zeroed in on a food hall and coworking space for 1701 13th Ave., where a sign company and a moving business currently operate. They submitted plans to the city earlier this month.
“There is a unique opportunity with the buildings and the way they laid out for a concept like this to work really well. And it seems like it’s one that the neighborhood kind of needs,” Thrive co-founder Ben McFerron said.
McFerron and Reid Goolsby founded Thrive in 2019, though the pair have been working together for over 10 years. The company has completed one project, an apartment building with retail space on the corner of Lowell Boulevard and 29th Avenue. The firm has two other townhome projects in the works in the Sloan’s Lake neighborhood.
The firm purchased the 1.3-acre site in the Lincoln Park neighborhood in January 2022 for $4.7 million, or $81 a square foot, records show.
The structures themselves drew the developers to the site, McFerron said. The roughly 14,000-square-foot building on the southeast corner of the lot, proposed to become the food hall, was constructed in the early 1900s, although additions have been made over the years.
“We really fell in love with the 1701 building,” McFerron said. “It just has high ceilings, open wood sled ceilings and open steel trusses and just has kind of a lot of character to it, and we felt like it would kind of be a shame to tear it down.”
The other structure, where the coworking would go, is approximately 11,000 square feet and newer. The building has 20-foot ceilings and a partial mezzanine, which Thrive plans to remove. It would then construct a fuller one that would expand the building’s footprint to about 14,000 square feet.
Thrive’s plans call for both structures to be connected by a courtyard, and the food hall to have two patios, one covered and one not. There would be 34 on-site parking spaces.
While the plan calls for two concepts, McFerron said the food hall is considered primary.
“We are pitching this as a food hall, beer garden, courtyard … entertainment concept,” McFerron said. “Coworking is basically a separate concept. It’s going to have a separate operator. It’s more of an ancillary benefit.”
Thrive considered other options for the second concept, but nothing made as much sense.
“If we position that second building as entertainment space as well, it ends up just being too much square footage and not supported by parking, or it becomes kind of an undefined, run-on space,” McFerron added.
Lincoln Park is divided roughly evenly between residential and industrial, separated by railroad tracks. Thrive’s spot is in the industrial portion, where food and beverage options are limited. It’s at the southern end of the Auraria campus, and less than a mile from Meow Wolf. Denver Water’s headquarters are across the street.
McFerron hopes to open up the spot to the public in 2027.
Lincoln Park’s industrial side has gotten some recent attention from developers. Last year, three investors bought an old marijuana cultivation facility at 890 Navajo St., and said they were looking to turn it into a community space.
A rendering of the proposed development at 13th Avenue and Shoshone Street. (Courtesy Thrive Development Co.)
A Denver development company is looking to breathe new life into a pair of Lincoln Park warehouses it bought nearly three years ago.
Thrive Development Co. has zeroed in on a food hall and coworking space for 1701 13th Ave., where a sign company and a moving business currently operate. They submitted plans to the city earlier this month.
“There is a unique opportunity with the buildings and the way they laid out for a concept like this to work really well. And it seems like it’s one that the neighborhood kind of needs,” Thrive co-founder Ben McFerron said.
McFerron and Reid Goolsby founded Thrive in 2019, though the pair have been working together for over 10 years. The company has completed one project, an apartment building with retail space on the corner of Lowell Boulevard and 29th Avenue. The firm has two other townhome projects in the works in the Sloan’s Lake neighborhood.
The firm purchased the 1.3-acre site in the Lincoln Park neighborhood in January 2022 for $4.7 million, or $81 a square foot, records show.
The structures themselves drew the developers to the site, McFerron said. The roughly 14,000-square-foot building on the southeast corner of the lot, proposed to become the food hall, was constructed in the early 1900s, although additions have been made over the years.
“We really fell in love with the 1701 building,” McFerron said. “It just has high ceilings, open wood sled ceilings and open steel trusses and just has kind of a lot of character to it, and we felt like it would kind of be a shame to tear it down.”
The other structure, where the coworking would go, is approximately 11,000 square feet and newer. The building has 20-foot ceilings and a partial mezzanine, which Thrive plans to remove. It would then construct a fuller one that would expand the building’s footprint to about 14,000 square feet.
Thrive’s plans call for both structures to be connected by a courtyard, and the food hall to have two patios, one covered and one not. There would be 34 on-site parking spaces.
While the plan calls for two concepts, McFerron said the food hall is considered primary.
“We are pitching this as a food hall, beer garden, courtyard … entertainment concept,” McFerron said. “Coworking is basically a separate concept. It’s going to have a separate operator. It’s more of an ancillary benefit.”
Thrive considered other options for the second concept, but nothing made as much sense.
“If we position that second building as entertainment space as well, it ends up just being too much square footage and not supported by parking, or it becomes kind of an undefined, run-on space,” McFerron added.
Lincoln Park is divided roughly evenly between residential and industrial, separated by railroad tracks. Thrive’s spot is in the industrial portion, where food and beverage options are limited. It’s at the southern end of the Auraria campus, and less than a mile from Meow Wolf. Denver Water’s headquarters are across the street.
McFerron hopes to open up the spot to the public in 2027.
Lincoln Park’s industrial side has gotten some recent attention from developers. Last year, three investors bought an old marijuana cultivation facility at 890 Navajo St., and said they were looking to turn it into a community space.
