Ken Vetting, former owner of Rocky Mountain Seed Co. in lower downtown, stands in a cooler with 50-pound bags of peas, beans and carrot seed. Steve Angelo Denver, and J. Scott Barraclough bought the business and its building at 15th and Market streets on Friday for about $3 million. The new owners plan to move the store and still are exploring uses for the LoDo site.
LoDo's seed Store uproots
New owners to move 85-year-old business
By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News
Step into Rocky Mountain Seed Co. and you'll walk on the same wood floors that F.C. Vetting did when he opened the store at 15th and Market streets 85 years ago.
And the same solid wood drawers and shelves that Vetting ordered from New York City in 1920 are still there and still used to store seeds. You won't find a computer, fax machine or any other newfangled contraption.
It's like an old-fashioned library, except instead of books and cards with the Dewey decimals printed on them, it has so many seed titles that even Ken Vetting, the grandson of the founder, can't begin to count how many he stocks.
It's as if time has stood still in the 38,000-square-foot store and warehouse. When it opened, it was surrounded by fresh fruit and vegetable stands. Then the area decayed over decades into skid row, before evolving into lower downtown, or LoDo, a trendy mix of bars and restaurants. Until now. On Friday, Vetting sold the business and the building.
Wooden seed drawers at Rocky Mountain Seed Co. were ordered from New York City in 1920 by the shop's founder, F.C. Vetting
PHOTOS BY HAL STOELZLE / ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS.
Vetting and office manager Cristy Bettis confer in his office overlooking the store on Thursday.
LoDo: Options for site include club,parking
Steve Angelo Denver, left and J. Scott Barraclough bought the Denver Seed Co.store and its building.
The seed business will be moved. Plans for the current location aren't set yet. Ideas include converting it into nightclub run by a national chain, a restaurant, condos or a boutique hotel.
Another idea is to replace the building with a parking structure.
Denver investor Steve Angelo, president of Denver-based Broadway Mortgage Corp., and J. Scott Barraclough, managing director of equity trading for D.A. Davidson & Co., paid about $3 million for the real estate and the business.
"It's the oldest surviving business in LoDo, I think," said lower downtown resident and historian Barb Gibson.
There are older businesses in Denver. For example, Gates Co., which is now a few blocks away from Rocky Mountain Seed, was founded in 1911 in a different part of the city - Broadway and Interstate 25.
With the eventual departure of the seed shop, the two remaining original LoDo business are the Colorado Saddlery and Rockmount Ranch Wear, both of which were founded in the '40s.
John Huggins, economic development director for Denver, said the sale of Rocky Mountain Seed represents an era drawing to close.
"Warehousing and manufacturing type of businesses once used to predominate in lower downtown," Huggins said. "But there are other uses for the land that pay more. That is not a bad thing. That is just part of what makes and shapes cities over time."
Vetting will remain a consultant for the seed company. One of his duties will to help Angelo and Barraclough move the store from LoDo to a high-visibility site along I-25 or Interstate 70 and modernize and greatly expand the business. Angelo said he plans to move the old shelves and drawers to a new 30,000- square-foot facility, which he hopes to advertise with a large, red neon sign.
He said it will have less walk-in
traffic than the current site, but a portion of it will almost be a museum, including an empty office set aside in honor of Vetting's late father that will be filled with antique furniture.
While Angelo is mulling uses of the LoDo site, the seed store will remain open until they find a new place for the business.
Jerry Arca, a LoDo resident and head of the of the Good Neighbor Committee for the Lower Downtown Neighborhood Association, said he would love to meet with the new owners.
"Our feeling is that if they want to open a high-quality restaurant, that can be a plus for the neighborhood," Arca said. "We certainly have questions these days for any nightclub or dancing establishment. We look at any request for a new liquor license pretty extensively."
Arca said he is sad that the seed company's days are numbered at its current location.
"We will miss it," Arca said. "I loved to see the pumpkins in the windows around Halloween and all of the seeds. It's been a great institution and a fun part of the lower downtown area."
Denver historian Tom Noel has been bracing himself for the eventual sale for quite some time.
"He is one of the last agricultural uses in lower downtown," Noel said. "It's such a relic. You have all of (the) wonderful woodwork and wonderful spaces there. I take my classes there on historic tours."
He joked that it would be ironic
if the store ended up as a "seedy" bar.
Vetting said the time was right to sell.
"I'm 71, and nobody else in the family is interested in it," he said.
Over recent years, he rejected numerous unsolicited offers.
"Everyone wanted the real estate and not the business," he said. A big part of why he accepted Angelo's offer is because he wants to keep the business, he said.
Angelo's plans are to bring the business to the modern era.
"I was the only guy who wanted the business," Angelo said.
"I see a lot of potential with the business. We need a higher-visibility location. Right now, he doesn't have a Web page or take orders off the Internet. We're going to change all that and bring his business into the 21st century."
Angelo says there are many more markets the store can tap through deals with state and federal government agencies, as well as at golf courses.
He said Vetting has developed a number of hybrid, drought-resistant seeds, for example, which could help farmers, homeowners and government agencies better weather dry conditions, he said.
In addition to acting as a consultant, Vetting wants to do some traveling.
"I want to go to Holland in the spring. I've been selling tulip bulbs for the past 35 or 40 years. I want to see where they come from."
