{"id":15311,"date":"2019-05-20T21:24:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-21T03:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/seven-downtown-glenwood-businesses-must-vacate-to-make-way-for-new-bank\/"},"modified":"2019-05-21T07:45:53","modified_gmt":"2019-05-21T13:45:53","slug":"seven-downtown-glenwood-businesses-must-vacate-to-make-way-for-new-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/seven-downtown-glenwood-businesses-must-vacate-to-make-way-for-new-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven downtown Glenwood businesses must vacate to make way for new bank"},"content":{"rendered":"
A pedestrian and her dog make their way along the 900 block of Grand Avenue in front of the Glenwood Spa and Glenwood Escape Room businesses on Monday afternoon. ANB Bank has purchased the property and has asked businesses to vacate by year’s end to make way for a new bank building.<\/strong>
Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cheryl Guay has done business in downtown Glenwood Springs for 35 years, with the last 25 being at her current Jewels & Gems shop at 914 Grand Ave.<\/p>\n

However, come Dec. 31, Guay must vacate and relocate her livelihood, as ANB Bank plans to demolish the entire building on the east side of Grand Avenue, from KC\u2019s Wing House & Sports Bar to the Glenwood Escape Room, to make way for a new bank building.<\/p>\n

All together, seven small businesses in that 900 block location must vacate, including KC\u2019s Wing House, Tesseract Comics & Games, Jewels & Gems, Bellini\u2019s Fashion, CPA Services Pro, Inc., Glenwood Spa N Nails and Glenwood Escape Room.<\/p>\n

\u201cGlenwood Springs, I don\u2019t know if we have a vision of what\u2019s going on,\u201d Guay said. \u201cIt\u2019s a good idea, I found out, that we need to see where Glenwood Springs is going.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\u201c\u2026 We need to see where Glenwood Springs is going \u2026 if it\u2019s going to be banks and real estate, or if it\u2019s going to be local businesses.\u201d\u2014 Cheryl Guay, owner of Jewels & Gems<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201c\u2026 If it\u2019s going to be banks and real estate, or if it\u2019s going to be local businesses. And, if we want to change it, it\u2019s the people that live here that have to change it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a building that, at least portions of, were built in 1917, according to Garfield County Assessor records.<\/p>\n

When Bellini\u2019s Fashion Owner Deb Burkholder received a letter dated Oct. 25 that stated, \u201cWe are writing to inform you that ownership of 910 Grand Ave has been transferred to ANB Bank, as of October 24, 2018,\u201d the small business owner did not think much of it.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 30, building tenants received an additional letter stating, \u201cTo reiterate, your current lease and payment terms will remain in full force and effect and your security deposit has been transferred to the new owner\/manager:\u201d ANB Bank.<\/p>\n

Burkholder \u2014 just a few years prior \u2014 had spent approximately $60,000 completing a tenant finish consisting of electrical and plumbing work just to get her small fashion store up and running again after it relocated from the Hotel Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first thought was, \u2018OK, we\u2019re paying rent to the bank because maybe whoever got the building is getting their loan through the bank,\u201d Burkholder said of her thought process, until she was not offered a new lease.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all spent a lot of money going in there, because we were basically told it will never change, everything is good, you\u2019re always going to be able to be here and the rent is always going to be reasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burkholder served as a flight nurse for 30 years before opening Bellini\u2019s Fashion 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI walk in there \u2026 and I just get so sad. It\u2019s like 10 years of my life was just for nothing,\u201d Burkholder explained. \u201cThere\u2019s no guarantee if you don\u2019t own your building, but it makes Glenwood Springs feel like a very unstable market for mom and pop [shops].\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, Book Train announced that, after four decades in business, it too had lost its lease in the 700 block of Grand. On April 26, the mom and pop bookshop officially closed its doors.<\/p>\n

Silver Bead & Yarn Shop owner Laura Speck, whose storefront looks across Grand Avenue at Jewels and Gems and Bellini\u2019s Fashion, was not looking forward to another bank lining the city\u2019s thoroughfare.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think of [Cheryl] as the matriarch of our downtown, because she\u2019s been here for so long,\u201d Speck said. \u201cShe remembers things when times were really good and when they were really challenging and she\u2019s withstood all of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever in a million years do you think you are going to possibly lose your business and your whole livelihood because a whole building is going to get taken out from under you.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement released Monday, ANB Bank confirmed that, following approval from the city of its new two-story building\u2019s design, it would in fact demolish the current structure in 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are currently working with the city of Glenwood Springs on developing the design, and at the end of 2020 we plan to have an ANB Bank occupy the first floor of the building with space for tenants on the second floor,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognize that this process may be disruptive to the existing tenants, many of which are on month-to-month leases,\u201d the statement continued. \u201cAs a result, we have been actively working and communicating with all building tenants since we purchased the building in 2018.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glenwood Spa N Nails, one of the building\u2019s seven tenants that must vacate following Dec. 31, also released a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to contribute the fact that their plans of placing a branch here is disruptive to the business owners and ultimately Glenwood. \u2026Also, the tenants each spent an incredible amount of money to set up their units,\u201d according to the statement explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cHundreds of tourists stroll downtown each day looking for things to do, and with a bank here the activities are reduced. This building takes up most of the block. In the end, their actions are incredibly selfish.\u201d<\/p>\n

mabennett@postindependent.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pedestrian and her dog make their way along the 900 block of Grand Avenue in front of the Glenwood Spa and Glenwood Escape Room businesses on Monday afternoon. ANB Bank has purchased the property and has asked businesses to vacate by year’s end to make way for a new bank building.Chelsea Self \/ Post […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 22:13:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15317,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15311\/revisions\/15317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}