The 305 W. First Ave. building dates to 1907, according to public records. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)
For Tamir Danon, the decision to buy his brewery’s real estate was a simple one.
“It was available,” he said through a laugh.
The co-founder of Novel Strand Brewing Co. purchased the 2,200-square-foot building at 305 W. First Ave. in Denver’s Baker neighborhood for $1 million earlier this month, according to public records.
Danon, who owns the brewery with his wife, Chantel Columna, and business partner Ayana Coker, opened the taproom in the Baker neighborhood in 2018. Novel Strand has also been serving coffee in the mornings since 2024.
He said the purchase is meant to ensure the longevity of the business. The craft beer sector is seeing consolidations and closures. Owning Novel Strand’s real estate feels more stable than renting, he said.
“We own the business and we own the land,” Danon said. “You can’t get rid of us now.”
The sellers in the deal were father-and-son duo Jerry and Fred Glick. The Glicks purchased the corner for $300,000 in 2015. Back then, the property wasn’t much to write home about.
Long ago, the building was a neighborhood pharmacy and grocery store. The property, pictured here in 2015, had fallen on hard times by the time it was purchased by the Glicks. (Courtesy Fred Glick)
“It literally had been a convenience store, and at one point, there’d been a laundromat part of it as well. … They were selling stale potato chips,” Fred Glick said.
“It was terrible. They had drug phones out front; it was a real blight on the neighborhood,” he added. “We bought it, redid the building pretty much completely. In the process, we discovered that the wall on First Avenue didn’t actually have any foundation underneath it. So, it was a little more [expensive] than we had anticipated.”
Fred Glick said he spent $1.2 million rehabbing the 120-year-old building, which included an 800-square-foot rear addition. He cycled through a few tenants before landing Novel Strand in 2018. Glick started talking about selling the building to the brewery about three years ago.
“Our return on cash was not spectacular, and it was pretty clear we were probably never really going to get out of it what we put into it. But this felt like the right answer for it, the best thing is for it to go to them. They built a business there,” he said.
Fred Glick is involved in a number of other projects around town, often making investments in corners similar to this one. He’s working through an income-restricted housing development for seniors in the backyard of his house in Denver’s Clayton neighborhood.
BusinessDen reporter Max Scheinblum contributed reporting.
The 305 W. First Ave. building dates to 1907, according to public records. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)
For Tamir Danon, the decision to buy his brewery’s real estate was a simple one.
“It was available,” he said through a laugh.
The co-founder of Novel Strand Brewing Co. purchased the 2,200-square-foot building at 305 W. First Ave. in Denver’s Baker neighborhood for $1 million earlier this month, according to public records.
Danon, who owns the brewery with his wife, Chantel Columna, and business partner Ayana Coker, opened the taproom in the Baker neighborhood in 2018. Novel Strand has also been serving coffee in the mornings since 2024.
He said the purchase is meant to ensure the longevity of the business. The craft beer sector is seeing consolidations and closures. Owning Novel Strand’s real estate feels more stable than renting, he said.
“We own the business and we own the land,” Danon said. “You can’t get rid of us now.”
The sellers in the deal were father-and-son duo Jerry and Fred Glick. The Glicks purchased the corner for $300,000 in 2015. Back then, the property wasn’t much to write home about.
Long ago, the building was a neighborhood pharmacy and grocery store. The property, pictured here in 2015, had fallen on hard times by the time it was purchased by the Glicks. (Courtesy Fred Glick)
“It literally had been a convenience store, and at one point, there’d been a laundromat part of it as well. … They were selling stale potato chips,” Fred Glick said.
“It was terrible. They had drug phones out front; it was a real blight on the neighborhood,” he added. “We bought it, redid the building pretty much completely. In the process, we discovered that the wall on First Avenue didn’t actually have any foundation underneath it. So, it was a little more [expensive] than we had anticipated.”
Fred Glick said he spent $1.2 million rehabbing the 120-year-old building, which included an 800-square-foot rear addition. He cycled through a few tenants before landing Novel Strand in 2018. Glick started talking about selling the building to the brewery about three years ago.
“Our return on cash was not spectacular, and it was pretty clear we were probably never really going to get out of it what we put into it. But this felt like the right answer for it, the best thing is for it to go to them. They built a business there,” he said.
Fred Glick is involved in a number of other projects around town, often making investments in corners similar to this one. He’s working through an income-restricted housing development for seniors in the backyard of his house in Denver’s Clayton neighborhood.
BusinessDen reporter Max Scheinblum contributed reporting.
