A vacant church just a block off Olde Town Arvada’s main drag could soon be reborn as community space and a second location for the beloved Denver pizza chain Hops & Pie, but first two developers need the city to cut them a check for $1 million. The Arvada Urban Renewal Authority was scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether to award the public funds to transform the former church property at 5690 Yukon St.
The proposal, first reported by BusinessDen, calls for renovating the vacant 9,000-square-foot church into a mixed-use space that would include a new outpost of Hops & Pie, which has served up pies and craft beer on Tennyson Street in Denver since 2010. The site sits just one block off Olde Town Arvada’s main strip, putting it squarely in the heart of the city’s historic commercial core.
This isn’t the first time the church property has been eyed for a major overhaul. Meeting materials from the Arvada Urban Renewal Authority show that back in December 2022, the agency’s board considered a very different redevelopment agreement for the same building, then referred to as the former Tabernacle Church, with a development group called 5690 Olde Town LLC. That 2022 proposal identified Brandon Young and Nicole Brant-Zawadzki as the individuals behind the LLC.
A Food Hall That Never Materialized
The 2022 pitch described in AURA’s board packet envisioned something quite different from today’s pizza-and-community-space concept: a food hall and gathering spot with six vendors, including a bar, three food vendors, a local grocery and a coffee stand. Developers at the time proposed investing nearly $6.6 million to remodel the church and surrounding site while preserving its historic character, according to the agency’s own meeting packet. That earlier agreement would have capped AURA’s contribution at $1.5 million, split between an upfront $300,000 payment and up to $1.2 million in sales-tax-increment reimbursements, and it reportedly gave the authority the right to terminate the deal if construction hadn’t begun by the end of October 2023…