A little coffee with your morning commute? Maybe a bagel or bun while you wait for the train?
That is RTD’s vision for use of about 10,000 square feet of retail space on the south side of the new parking garage at the University of Denver Station.
The decision on who gets to sell coffee, doughnuts, sandwiches, sweatshirts or anything else at the new station won’t be made by the time it opens Nov. 17. In part, that’s because the retail space is still unfinished, and a zoning change is under discussion.
RTD’s authority limits it to leasing the space for services “accessory to the station.” The authority may stretch to allow coffee and doughnuts, RTD officials point out, but not necessarily to sandwiches or sweatshirts. Newspaper racks are already in place near the platform.
The authority limitation could change, however, if a proposal to rezone the property and an adjacent parcel to the west is adopted by the Denver City Council. The change under discussion would be a switch from residential zoning to R-MU-30, a mixed-use category that would permit consumer retail and services and small-scale office uses.