With Tennyson Street and West 44th Avenue as its heart, north Denver’s Berkeley neighborhood has been described as a diamond in the rough. Now that developers, business owners and hip young residents have discovered it, however, it won’t be rough for long.
These urban pioneers are finding their way into one of Denver’s original streetcar suburbs, and in the process are turning it into a desirable, walkable, artsy enclave that may soon rival its neighbor, the Highland.
Says developer Wally Hultin, “The mixture of old-timers like Tennyson True Value and 45-year-old Flesher-Hinton Music Co., with newcomers like a yoga studio, art galleries and Simple Foods organic market makes it a hip place to be.”
And profitable.
Both homeowners and entrepreneurs are finding that their money goes farther in Berkeley than it would in better- known urban hot spots. And those who have invested in the neighborhood’s future are seeing double-digit returns.
Four years ago, Jon and Lani Rieger bought a 100-year-old farm house for $160,000. When they refinanced it this year, it had appreciated to $220,000.
“Like many who buy here, we’ve fixed our house up,” said Lani Rieger. “But even without renovations, home prices have gone up at least 10 percent over the past four years.”
Favorable zoning makes Berkeley even more exciting for investors, Hultin said. “Many of the homes in this area are zoned R-2, which means they can be torn down and replaced by duplexes. There’s great potential for expansion.”
The land was originally homesteaded in 1858 by Jim Baker, an early-day Colorado trapper, scout, guide and mountain man. As the story goes, he moved to Wyoming in 1873 because Denver got too crowded for his tastes.
Investors bought his land in the late 1880s and developed it into the town of Berkeley. They marketed it to Denver residents as a “healthy” suburb just 20 minutes by streetcar from the jobs and excitement of Denver. Two lakes to the north provided swimming, boating and car camping.
The Jesuits bought a chunk of land to the east and built Regis University. The Elitch family bought land to the south for an entertainment park, and Lakeside amusement park opened to the west.
Berkeley grew into a close- knit working-class town with a retail strip along the street named for poet Alfred Tennyson. Gloria Rudden, 72 and a Berkeley native, remembers the street car that ran along Tennyson in the 1930s.
The commercial district fell on hard times once nearby Lakeside Shopping Center opened in the 1950s, and many of the home-owned stores closed. “The heart of the community became a revolving door of thrift shops and dusty storefronts,” Rudden said.
Berkeley slumbered peacefully through most of the 1990s as decaying areas in LoDo, Highland, Old South Pearl and Old South Gaylord streets were transformed into yuppie enclaves.
When merchants such as Jon Rieger looked for more affordable space in the late 1990s, they found Tennyson nearly intact. And while the other areas had a block or two of bona fide commercial space, Berkeley had six.
It also had a growing new customer base. After Elitch Gardens closed in 1996, the land was redeveloped into a new urban community.
“I was looking for a place to open a gallery seven years ago and went looking on South Pearl Street and Old Gaylord,” Rieger said. “The rent on Tennyson was a third of those other two neighborhoods.”
When he co-founded Lapis Gallery, his was the third gallery on the block. Two more followed a few months later and, in 1998, 21 merchants formed the Tennyson Proprietor’s Association to promote commerce in the area.
They’re credited with spreading the news about Berkeley’s rebirth. They decided to start monthly Friday night “Art Walks” to increase foot traffic between the galleries, boutiques and coffeehouses. Today, the streets are packed on the first Friday of each month, and the neighborhood has the energy of a mini LoDo.
Frannie Plavnick also arrived in 1998. She was ready to move from downtown and had looked at houses in Park Hill and Highland before settling on an 870-square-foot home in Berkeley. She paid $89,000, $25,000 less than comparable homes in other locations.
Her most recent property tax bill values her home at $154,000, but comparable homes in her neighborhood sell for more than $200,000.
One new business has opened, renovated or relocated to Berkeley every 30 days since January 2003, according to data compiled by Hultin. Plavnick joined them 10 months ago, renting a house at 4321 Tennyson St. and opening Zelda’s, a casual furnishings and accessories boutique.
“It’s an exciting neighborhood to be in,” Plavnick said.
A few years ago, Hultin and Dave Decker of Byers Street Properties began developing the corner of 44th and Tennyson into a four-story mixed-use building.
In 2003, they opened the Lofts at Berkeley Park with ground-floor commercial/retail space that rents for about $20 a square foot and 30 residential units priced at about $250 per square foot.
One bedroom/one bath units, for example, sold for $175,000; two-bedroom, two-story lofts for $400,000. Comparable projects in Cherry Creek sell for $300-$350 per square foot or higher.
All units have been sold, Hultin said, most to the kind of young, hip buyers who want what Berkeley’s founders wanted – a friendly, walkable place that is close to downtown Denver.
