Nate Axvig will open Aktiv, his Scandinavian outerwear store, next month at Market Station’s Base Camp. (Max Scheinblum/BusinessDen)
Stacey Harris and Nate Axvig have found their base camps.
Aktiv, Axvig’s Scandinavian outerwear retailer, and Glass House Optical, Harris’s purveyor of luxury specs, are set to open in the ground floor of Market Station, called Base Camp, in the coming months.
Axvig plans to have his store up and running within the next several weeks, and Harris is targeting a December debut.
Existing tenants in the retail hub include Scarpaletto, Topo Designs, Thule and Helly Hansen.
“It’s a retail destination and, in downtown, I think it’s the best one,” Axvig said. “It’s so Colorado. Everything is built for movement. Everything is built for changing weather.”
Axvig signed a four-year lease for his 1,250 square-foot space. Harris’s deal runs five years for her 1,000 square feet.
Andy Clemens of SRS Real Estate Partners represented both tenants in their respective deals. Stuart Zall, Kyle Framson and Stacey DiPalma of The Zall Company represented the landlord.
Axvig, a former trial lawyer, started Aktiv as an online shop for northern European gear in 2018 before opening a shop at Aurora’s Stanley Marketplace in 2020. Since then, Aktiv has grown to showcase around 40 different brands from Norway, Sweden and the like, many of which aren’t available anywhere else in North America.
His shop in Stanley isn’t moving anywhere. But he thinks that tourists flowing from Union Station will enjoy the premium hoodies, base layers and jackets he sources from across the pond.
“The companies that we sell, if you shop in Oslo or Stockholm, Copenhagen and Bergen, this is what it feels like. It’s grouped. It’s curated,” he said. “And that’s what Base Camp is.”
Harris is hoping to attract the bigger spenders in that crowd with her “celebrity eyewear.” The appointment-only Glass House sells pieces from the brands of Louis Vuitton Moët Hennesy, the Parisian parent company of Louis Vuitton, Givenchy and Fendi. Harris also sells specs from independent designers Cartier and Maybach.
Stacey Harris, center, surrounded by her staff. (Courtesy Glass House)
Price tags bottom out at $1,200, she said, and her clients include the Nuggets’ Peyton Watson and Aaron Gordon, as well as ESPN talking heads Marcus Spears and Monica McNutt. Harris opened her first store at Denver Pavilions in 2020 before relocating to the Cherry Creek Shopping Center in 2023.
She’s been looking to move out of the mall all year, citing a “dying mall culture” and a desire to better shield her high-profile customers from unwanted attention. She picked downtown because she wants to lead the district’s revitalization and also put Denver on the map as a destination for shopping.
“We’re an attraction, I don’t hear anyone say ‘I wanna come to Denver to shop,’” Harris said. “But once you put something like us in town, people will say ‘I want to put (our) flagship store there.’ (Downtown) just doesn’t have anything like us yet.”
But it hasn’t been all smooth sailing in Harris bid to bring Glass House to Base Camp.
Harris said a rent subsidy program once promised to her by the DDP and Denver Economic Development and Opportunity went away after she signed her lease a month ago. She now has a hearing to get $100,000 from the Downtown Development Authority, which has around $375 million remaining after $100 million initial funding commitments announced over the summer.
That money, Harris said, would cover the majority of her $150,000 to $175,000 buildout.
“There’s been a lot of postponing and confusion as to what I can apply for and what I would be approved for,” she said. “I know they have a lot going on with the budget cuts… But there were few programs that they promised me that went away, so it’s a lot of disappointment and discouragement.”
Inside Aktiv’s 1,250 square foot space at Base Camp. (Max Scheinblum/BusinessDen)
Axvig, on the other hand, has had a more positive experience. Through a DDP program, his rent is reduced for the first six months of his lease. He is also waiting to hear back from the DDA if it might fund some or all of Aktiv’s $190,000 buildout.
He’s having a tough enough time dealing with President Donald Trump’s tariff policy, though, since the vast majority of his products are imported. He’s said several Scandinavian retailers have already told him they will raise their prices by 15% across the board to cope with higher duties.
A sweater that he sold last year for $240 will go for $280 this winter, he said. He recently paid a $3,200 bill for an order just to cover the new levies, something he predicted will become more common for both businesses and shoppers alike.
“I shouldn’t have to worry that the decision of the Supreme Court will have a real effect on our prices and our bottom line,” he said. “I mean, I got out of the law because of that. I didn’t want to deal with it. And it’s just part of my everyday life now.”
Nate Axvig will open Aktiv, his Scandinavian outerwear store, next month at Market Station’s Base Camp. (Max Scheinblum/BusinessDen)
Stacey Harris and Nate Axvig have found their base camps.
Aktiv, Axvig’s Scandinavian outerwear retailer, and Glass House Optical, Harris’s purveyor of luxury specs, are set to open in the ground floor of Market Station, called Base Camp, in the coming months.
Axvig plans to have his store up and running within the next several weeks, and Harris is targeting a December debut.
Existing tenants in the retail hub include Scarpaletto, Topo Designs, Thule and Helly Hansen.
“It’s a retail destination and, in downtown, I think it’s the best one,” Axvig said. “It’s so Colorado. Everything is built for movement. Everything is built for changing weather.”
Axvig signed a four-year lease for his 1,250 square-foot space. Harris’s deal runs five years for her 1,000 square feet.
Andy Clemens of SRS Real Estate Partners represented both tenants in their respective deals. Stuart Zall, Kyle Framson and Stacey DiPalma of The Zall Company represented the landlord.
Axvig, a former trial lawyer, started Aktiv as an online shop for northern European gear in 2018 before opening a shop at Aurora’s Stanley Marketplace in 2020. Since then, Aktiv has grown to showcase around 40 different brands from Norway, Sweden and the like, many of which aren’t available anywhere else in North America.
His shop in Stanley isn’t moving anywhere. But he thinks that tourists flowing from Union Station will enjoy the premium hoodies, base layers and jackets he sources from across the pond.
“The companies that we sell, if you shop in Oslo or Stockholm, Copenhagen and Bergen, this is what it feels like. It’s grouped. It’s curated,” he said. “And that’s what Base Camp is.”
Harris is hoping to attract the bigger spenders in that crowd with her “celebrity eyewear.” The appointment-only Glass House sells pieces from the brands of Louis Vuitton Moët Hennesy, the Parisian parent company of Louis Vuitton, Givenchy and Fendi. Harris also sells specs from independent designers Cartier and Maybach.
Stacey Harris, center, surrounded by her staff. (Courtesy Glass House)
Price tags bottom out at $1,200, she said, and her clients include the Nuggets’ Peyton Watson and Aaron Gordon, as well as ESPN talking heads Marcus Spears and Monica McNutt. Harris opened her first store at Denver Pavilions in 2020 before relocating to the Cherry Creek Shopping Center in 2023.
She’s been looking to move out of the mall all year, citing a “dying mall culture” and a desire to better shield her high-profile customers from unwanted attention. She picked downtown because she wants to lead the district’s revitalization and also put Denver on the map as a destination for shopping.
“We’re an attraction, I don’t hear anyone say ‘I wanna come to Denver to shop,’” Harris said. “But once you put something like us in town, people will say ‘I want to put (our) flagship store there.’ (Downtown) just doesn’t have anything like us yet.”
But it hasn’t been all smooth sailing in Harris bid to bring Glass House to Base Camp.
Harris said a rent subsidy program once promised to her by the DDP and Denver Economic Development and Opportunity went away after she signed her lease a month ago. She now has a hearing to get $100,000 from the Downtown Development Authority, which has around $375 million remaining after $100 million initial funding commitments announced over the summer.
That money, Harris said, would cover the majority of her $150,000 to $175,000 buildout.
“There’s been a lot of postponing and confusion as to what I can apply for and what I would be approved for,” she said. “I know they have a lot going on with the budget cuts… But there were few programs that they promised me that went away, so it’s a lot of disappointment and discouragement.”
Inside Aktiv’s 1,250 square foot space at Base Camp. (Max Scheinblum/BusinessDen)
Axvig, on the other hand, has had a more positive experience. Through a DDP program, his rent is reduced for the first six months of his lease. He is also waiting to hear back from the DDA if it might fund some or all of Aktiv’s $190,000 buildout.
He’s having a tough enough time dealing with President Donald Trump’s tariff policy, though, since the vast majority of his products are imported. He’s said several Scandinavian retailers have already told him they will raise their prices by 15% across the board to cope with higher duties.
A sweater that he sold last year for $240 will go for $280 this winter, he said. He recently paid a $3,200 bill for an order just to cover the new levies, something he predicted will become more common for both businesses and shoppers alike.
“I shouldn’t have to worry that the decision of the Supreme Court will have a real effect on our prices and our bottom line,” he said. “I mean, I got out of the law because of that. I didn’t want to deal with it. And it’s just part of my everyday life now.”
