Durango’s old Basin Printing Press location on East Second Avenue may take on a new role as a café, restaurant and workspace hybrid.
In December, Tim Turner, owner of Zia Taqueria, and Charles Shaw, owner of the Smiley Building, partnered in purchasing the former Basin Printing Building at 1437 East Second Ave. with plans for redevelopment.
The building has sat empty since 2022 when Basin Printing Press closed. Shaw and Turner have plans to revitalize the space by turning it into a bakery, restaurant and community gathering space.
“Bakeries help create community and community gathering,” Turner said. “And so I think that will be an important piece.”
They have been working with Serious Delights as the potential bakery operator.
“We’ve met with Robert Ziegler, who owns Serious Delights, and he has a wholesale bakery in Bodo Park and a retail outlet at Nature's Oasis,” Turner said. “But he would like to have a wholesale bakery, as well as a retail storefront.”
The tentative vision is to have a counter-service café open for breakfast and then some sort of quick dinner option, like pizza or salad, in the evening, he said.
Turner said he and Shaw would like to create something similar to the Smiley Building concept and have art studios and possibly a makerspace in addition to food service.
To achieve their vision, they would have to renovate the building. But Turner said they would, by and large, maintain the general shape and structure of the building.
“The building itself is designed really well,” he said. “We just want to do the storefront and open that up to the street and have it basically flow out from the building.”
While the building has been purchased, none of the plans are finalized.
In an email to The Durango Herald, Turner and Shaw said they “definitely have some hesitation with the City’s proposed midtown connect plan, which will connect Rotary Park, the Animas River Trail and the Downtown grid.”
The plans they referred to are part of the city’s Midtown Safety and Connectivity project, meant to create a safer connection into downtown Durango for pedestrians and bicyclists coming from the north side of town.
The city’s plan includes the addition of a two-way bike lane that would separate pedestrians and bikers, said Devin King, project manager. The bike lane would be physically separated from traffic by a median.
King said the plan would remove seven on-street parking spaces – primarily along the section of East Second Avenue that intersects with 13th and 14th streets – to accommodate the addition of the bike lane and curb extensions meant to shorten pedestrians’ crossing distance.
Shaw and Turner believe the city’s plan to remove on-street parking on East Second Avenue will challenge the success of the new business venture, as well as the success of other businesses in the area.
Shaw said it is not just the parking that concerns him but the safety of pedestrians, particularly children who use the sidewalks to get to and from school. He thinks the sidewalks in the city's plan are too narrow to effectively ensure pedestrian safety.
He drew up an alternative plan that would address those concerns.
“I don't like to say no to something unless I have a better idea,” he said.
Shaw’s proposal would extend the width of the sidewalks along East Second Avenue, creating a shared-use path for pedestrians and bikers without removing on-street parking.
King said widening the sidewalk to create a shared-use path was considered during the preliminary design process, but to meet Federal Highway Administration and Colorado Department of Transportation guidelines, the path would have to be 12 to 14 feet wide.
According to King, the street grades and cross slope in the area make that amount of expansion “pretty near impossible.” He noted that when the idea of a shared-use path was presented to the public, a lot of people did not like it and preferred the creation of separate bike lanes.
Additionally, he said the city has worked to include existing midtown businesses in the rehabilitation project, and the designs have been exposed to extensive public feedback.
“We've had two public meetings, we've had a survey, we've had several meetings with individual business owners,” King said.
While Shaw and Turner expressed excitement about the project and the revitalization of midtown Durango, they said their business plans are on hold until the city adopts “a more conducive street design” for the area.
If Turner and Shaw decide to move forward, they will finalize the design and “put it out to the community and see what we can create,” Turner said. “Definitely with a keen focus on it being a community gathering place.”
jbowman@durangoherald.com
