City Street Investors, the local development firm and restaurant operator, is putting the final touches on its Arvada Beer Garden, set to open early next month.
A special emphasis has been placed on the “garden” part of the business.
“It’s a million-dollar garden with 850 plants,” said Joe Vostrejs, a co-owner of the firm.
“With 44 trees. But who’s counting?” added Rod Wagner, Vostrejs’ business partner.
The entire project at 9258 W. 58th Place spans one acre, with a 5,000-square-foot beer garden on one end and a 2,000-square-foot retail building on the other. In between them sits a 14,300-square-foot pocket park. The total price tag stands at $6 million.
But City Street isn’t paying all that.
The Arvada Urban Renewal Authority sold the property to the developers at a discounted price of $230,000 and kicked in another $1.6 million for some of the infrastructure onsite. That’s because the beer garden is part of a larger redevelopment that includes hundreds of new homes and apartments along with 185,000 square feet of commercial space.
“Arvada felt like the beer garden was exactly the kind of placemaking they needed for their projects. So it was a fit. I’m not running around the metro area trying to find another place to do a beer garden. We’re really only doing beer gardens where it’s a strategic part of a greater vision for placemaking,” Vostrejs said.
City Street has set a tentative opening date of Monday, July 7. The company operates four other beer gardens in the metro, in Lowry, Green Valley Ranch, Edgewater and the Golden Triangle.
No tenant has signed on yet for the smaller retail building, which was constructed with a mixture of Oregon and Canadian wood and resembles an old-school train station.
Fortunately, the developers avoided paying tariffs on most of their materials, which kicked in well into the construction process. Wagner said the Canadian wood cost them $2.67 a board foot – the standard unit of measurement in lumber. When they needed a bit more for the project after tariffs went into effect, that price jumped to more than $7 per board foot.
“I think if we were to build it again, I’d probably carry 20% bigger contingency,” Wagner said.
The retail development at Garrison Street and 58th Avenue is situated across from the Ralston Central Park. The urban renewal authority anticipates it will help connect it to the new homes around it, creating one big walkable neighborhood.
“We just wanted [it] to be a place where the community could come and gather and get food, beverages, things like that,” said Carrie Briscoe, executive director of the authority.
