The Federal Theatre Will Become Denver's Newest Music Venue

"Saving old places is our thing, I guess," says Scott Happel with a laugh.

The Federal Theatre has been empty for years, but soon it will be filled with music. Happel, Andy Bercaw and Peter Ore, who own the Oriental Theater and HQ, have taken over the lease and hope to have the theater at 3830 Federal Boulevard open as a 650-seat music venue by the end of September.

"We're so excited to get this off our chest," says Happel, as the announcement was officially posted today, June 19. "It's been a lot of work and we're actually slightly surprised it stayed as secret as it has. We're ready to spill the beans."

The stars aligned perfectly for this venture to happen, and Happel is stoked to restore another old movie palace into a prime music venue, similar to what he and his partners did with the Oriental. The Federal Theatre originally opened sometime in the 1920s and received an Art Deco remodeling in 1948 by Charles D. Strong, who designed several homes, apartment buildings and office buildings in Denver; he was also part of the Colorado House of Representatives. But like many of the city's classic old movie houses, the Federal closed in the 1970s. "It was sort of largely nothing for fifty years," Happel says. "A church utilized it as a space for the last ten or twenty years, but it's not clear how much they used it. The church left in January 2023, and the landlords gave us a call."

As it turned out, he already knew the landlords — they also own the Oriental Theater. "We had no idea until [Jake Sager] called me one day and he's like, 'Hey, do you think you guys could make this into a business?'" Happel recalls. "I was like, 'Whaaat?'"

Happel, Bercaw and Ore received the keys in January 2024. "In November of 2023, I went over and walked through it, and it's actually in good shape," Happel says. "I mean, there's stuff that has to be done, but it was in what I considered shockingly good shape, considering how dormant it's been for so long."

He says that the decision to take it on was an easy one. "It just felt too good not to do — to be able to revitalize this building," Happel says. "To be able to take that and not only just secure it, but bring it back to be a viable business that will bring money and culture and fun to the neighborhood, instead of just problems, is very exciting for us."

Because the building had been vacant for so long, it would draw some people to the neighborhood whom residents would prefer not to deal with, he explains. But Happel hopes that as a music venue, the Federal Theater will revamp the area and its businesses, as well as other vacant spots that could be filled. "Look at Tennyson," he says. "While we certainly don't think the Oriental is solely responsible for anything, multiple times a week we're bringing hundreds of people to the area, and all of the restaurants and bars around us are asking how many people we're expecting so they could staff appropriately, because it massively affects their businesses in a good way to have hundreds of people coming to the neighborhood. So we hope to have that same effect over there, and to see new locally owned places pop up around us and make a thriving little area right there."

The team has a demonstrated ability to maintain the originality of classic Denver spaces while revamping them, having made 3 Kings Tavern — one of the venues that made Happel fall in love with the city — into HQ back in 2020, as well as successfully restoring the Oriental Theater's neon marquee in recent years. Happel says that they've kept the Art Deco aesthetic at the Federal, too.

"We're going to do our best to bring the Federal Theatre to look and feel like it did in the '60s, when it was still a thriving theater," he says. "To that end, we've contracted with Morry's Neon, the oldest neon company in town that made most of these marquees after World War II and has maintained many of them over the years. We've contracted with them to refurbish the marquee so by the time we open, we will have a beautiful, revitalized, fully functional marquee."

As for programming, "we envision it being very much like the Oriental Theater," he says. "The Oriental Theater does all genres of music, it does comedy, it does podcasts, it does wrestling, it does burlesque. It's a really eclectic calendar. We're quite proud of the fact that we're able to do so much different stuff and not just be pigeonholed into one or two things, and we really anticipate the Federal being very similar — a good mix of national touring acts and local artists."

The Federal Theatre will be completely independent, Happel emphasizes, just as his other venues are. "We do all of our own booking between me and Peter," he says. "Peter has been a booking agent booking national touring acts for decades, Andy's been in the local music scene for decades. I handle a lot of the rentals and non-music stuff, like the burlesque and the dance and the movies. So we're a really good mix, and we won't be outsourcing anything.

"It is important to our aesthetic that we are independent, truly," he continues, pointing to how other venues may claim to be independent, but are actually subsidiaries of large booking companies. "It's a big part of who we are, just as people and personalities."

The revamped venue has passed through the zoning and use phases with the city, and is now finalizing its liquor license, which the owners estimate will be finished by early- to mid-August. "We are planning on a grand opening in September. We have not set an exact date yet, because we're still poking around with relatively famous artists from Denver, trying to find a match with someone that would be willing to do it at a date that would work," Happel says. "But our timeframe is somewhere in mid-September."

In the meantime, the venue has a Founders Club on its website that can be joined for perks at thefederaltheatre.com. "There's unique merch items that will only ever be sold as part of this — stickers, pins, hats, T-shirts and hoodies we're super excited about," Happel says, which will be designed by Indy Ink. They've also contracted with painter Andre Lippard, who's known for creating pictures of buildings around Denver, to portray the Federal Theatre — and prints of the finished product will be available to members of the Founders Club.

"It's a lot of work and a lot of effort," Happel says, "but we need to provide fun places for people to come, and we need to people to want to come out and have a good time."