Walk South University Boulevard between Exposition and Ohio this week and two things compete for your attention. At 740, orange construction fencing wraps a dirt lot where the Bonnie Brae Tavern stood for nearly 90 years. A few doors away, past a "for sale" sign on the Conoco that's been there since February, there's a line outside Ni Tuyo on a Wednesday night, no reservation possible, because the restaurant stopped taking them.
Both things are true at once, and neither tells the whole story by itself. The version you've probably already read somewhere else goes something like this: legacy business closes, neighborhood loses its soul, insert wistful quote about the good old days. That version isn't wrong exactly. It's just incomplete, and it misses the pattern that actually explains what's happening on this strip in 2026.
Here's the pattern. The properties in transition right now, the Tavern site and the Conoco, are both corner parcels at University and Ohio. The businesses that aren't going anywhere, Ni Tuyo, Bonnie Brae Ice Cream, the cleaners, sit on storefronts that were never part of that corner assemblage. That's not a coincidence, and once you see it, the whole strip reads differently.
What's Actually Happening at 740
The Bonnie Brae Tavern closed on June 25, 2022, after Carl and Sue Dire's grandsons Ricky and Michael sold the 0.72-acre property to Churchill Bunn of Alpine Investments and Rhys Duggan of Revesco Properties for $4.5 million. That sale included not just the Tavern building but the neighboring Wish Gifts property and the surrounding parking.
The project, branded akin Bonnie Brae, sat in the concept phase for a couple of years while renderings circulated. When the sale first closed in 2022, Bunn described the plan in an email this way: "We're in early concept planning phase for a three-story apartment project with ground-floor retail along University." By February 2026, Naked Denver was reporting the redevelopment as officially underway at the corner of University and Ohio, and a commercial listing for a nearby parcel dated that April described akin Bonnie Brae as already under construction.
The numbers on unit count and retail square footage vary slightly depending on which filing or article you check. Alpine's own materials describe 46 to 48 apartments spanning roughly 689 to 1,532 square feet, with floor plans running one to three bedrooms. A separate account tied to the city's development review put the retail component at around 16,500 square feet, while earlier developer materials cited about 7,500. Either way, the ground floor is staying commercial. The official akin Bonnie Brae site lists pre-leasing starting this fall, with move-ins expected in early 2027. A related capital partner's site frames it as spring 2027. Somewhere in that six-month window, the corner that held pizza and pot roast for four generations of Dires will hold someone's new kitchen.
The Conoco's Turn
A few doors down, a second corner is quietly working through the same math. The Bonnie Brae Conoco at 724 S. University, run by the Wilson family since 1942, sits at the same University and Ohio corner where the Tavern once stood, and it went on the market in February 2026. Ken Wilson and his two sisters signed with a listing agency and put the "for sale" placard up below the gas prices, according to reporting from the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle in April.
Nobody has announced what replaces a full-service gas station on that corner. That's the point. The listing itself is the news. Eighty-four years of one family filling tanks and checking oil is now a question mark, and the answer will land right next to whatever opens inside akin Bonnie Brae's ground-floor retail.
What's Holding Steady in the Middle
Here's where the pattern becomes useful instead of just interesting. Look at what's changed hands versus what hasn't:
| Address | What's there | Status as of August 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| 740 S. University (former Tavern) | akin Bonnie Brae, under construction | Corner parcel, redevelopment underway |
| 724 S. University | Bonnie Brae Conoco | Corner parcel, listed for sale since Feb. 2026 |
| 730 S. University | Ni Tuyo | Mid-block, operating, added new house policies |
| 743 S. University | Bonnie Brae Nails & Spa | Mid-block, new grand opening this year |
| 750 S. University | Wish Gifts | Building included in the 2022 site sale, but the shop is still listed as an operating merchant |
| 763, 785, 799 S. University | Coffee shop, Bonnie Brae Liquor, Bonnie Brae Ice Cream | Mid-block, no reported ownership changes |
Wish Gifts is the one wrinkle worth flagging. Its building at 750 S. University was part of the same 2022 sale that included the Tavern, bundled in with the surrounding parking. Four years later, the Bonnie Brae Neighborhood Association's own current merchant listing still shows Wish Gifts open under regular hours, which means a business whose building got swept into the redevelopment deal is still ringing up sales today while the Tavern's replacement won't welcome its first tenant until 2027. Everywhere else on the strip that wasn't part of that original assemblage, ownership hasn't changed hands. A June 2026 report from Cherry Creek News on neighbors organizing to protect the retail strip put a finer point on why turnover clusters where it does: commercial real estate experts quoted in that coverage note that landlords replacing older, fully depreciated single-story buildings with new construction typically need higher base rents to cover the cost of building, which prices out longtime, lower-rent tenants first. A corner parcel with room for a taller building carries more of that math than a storefront squeezed between two others.
Ni Tuyo Outgrew Its Own Waitlist
The mid-block success story this year is Ni Tuyo, and it's worth understanding why it's thriving in the same stretch where a 90-year-old institution just lost its lease on the land. Chef Silvia Andaya, known for Adelitas Cocina y Cantina and La Doña Mezcaleria on South Broadway, opened the restaurant at 730 S. University in July 2022 with her daughter and son-in-law, Nathan Ayala-Schmit, running the front of house. Ayala-Schmit called the address "this dream location" when the deal closed, and four years later the bet has paid off enough that the restaurant recently switched to a walk-in-only model, dropping reservations entirely for parties of any size. The molcajetes, five varieties bubbling in volcanic rock mortars, earned a spot on Eater Denver's best Mexican food map this year, alongside a Food & Wine mention.
Ni Tuyo also added a 4 percent service surcharge on every check, directed toward staff wages and benefits, a detail some diners have noticed on their receipts without seeing it flagged clearly on the menu. It's the kind of operational tweak that only matters if you're already a regular, which is exactly the audience noticing it.
The Picnic Doesn't Care Either Way
None of this has touched the one institution on the calendar that predates every business on the strip except the Tavern that just left: the Bonnie Brae Neighborhood Association's annual picnic. Held every year on the first Sunday after Labor Day at Bonnie Brae Park, that puts this year's gathering on September 13. The BBNA, which started in the late 1990s and isn't an HOA, also runs Food Truck Nights through the summer and maintains a walking map of the neighborhood's hand-tiled alley mosaics. Construction fencing on University hasn't moved any of it.
That's the actual takeaway if you live here and you're trying to figure out what August turning into September means for your block. The corners are where the strip's economics get renegotiated, because corner lots can support the taller buildings that make redevelopment pencil out. The middle of the block, where a storefront can only ever be a storefront, keeps doing what it's always done: new tenants like the nail salon move in, established ones like Ni Tuyo get busier, and the picnic happens at the park regardless of what's under construction on University.
A Resident's Walk This Week
If you want to see the pattern for yourself, here's the route:
- Start at Exposition and University, at the Campus Lounge, still running as a neighborhood bar.
- Walk north past Bonnie Brae Ice Cream, Wish Gifts, and the coffee shop, all unchanged.
- Pass the Ni Tuyo patio around dinnertime and count how many people are waiting without a reservation.
- Note the new Bonnie Brae Nails & Spa signage a few doors down.
- Reach the Conoco at Ohio, check whether the "for sale" sign is still up.
- Cross to the construction fencing at 740 and look for any posted leasing information for akin Bonnie Brae.
Nothing on that walk requires you to be house hunting. It just requires living here and paying attention, which is what the strip has always asked of its neighbors, whether the corner belonged to a tavern, a gas station, or whatever comes next.
If you're weighing a move into Bonnie Brae or anywhere else along Denver's front range, Moxie Property Group can walk you through what a block's turnover actually means for the long-term feel of a neighborhood, not just what's for sale on it this month. Start Your Colorado Search when you're ready.
