Capitol Hill Books Has Survived for 44 Years, but Can It Survive BRT Construction?

Bookstores are quiet spaces. Usually.

Inside Capitol Hill Books on the corner of East Colfax Avenue and Grant Street, the normally hushed aisles now echo with noise from rattled windows and construction equipment.

"You should think of bookstores sort of like libraries," says Holly Brooks, 74, the owner of Capitol Hill Books since 2004. Inside the shop, though, it's so loud that she has to repeat herself to be heard.

Visible through the store's large windows, workers tear up the asphalt along the curbs of Colfax. Lanes of traffic are coned off. Cars honk as they're funneled into congested bottlenecks. Trying to dodge obstacles, RTD buses on the 16 route can barely clear the sharp turn onto Grant. Pedestrians try to navigate the hectic intersection, confused by "Sidewalk Closed" signs that are bent and overturned.
It's all part of Denver's Bus Rapid Transit project. On October 7, the city began pouring $150 million of Federal Transit Administration funds into a new center lane for buses between the east and west lanes of East Colfax. The first phase of BRT construction from Broadway to Williams Street is projected to last six to ten months, with the full project anticipated to last until 2028 as BRT construction slowly reaches Interstate 225 in Aurora.

Brooks isn't sure her bookstore, located right next to the State Capitol Building, will make it that long.

"This is just monstrous," she says. "There's nowhere for customers to park. They tore out all the parking meters on our block of Colfax. And no one took into consideration that during the legislative session, they put yellow bags over the Grant Street meters. The only parking lot next to us charges $40, and no one wants to spend $40 to come in and buy a $6 book. Then there's all their gigantic machinery. I don't know how we're going to survive."

Granted, BRT's current construction is probably not as loud as the accident the store suffered in 2021, when a pickup truck carrying e-scooters crashed into Capitol Hill Books' glass storefront. No staff was hurt, but the shop had to be temporarily closed for costly repairs and a large selection of rare books was lost in the collision.

Capitol Hill Books has seen a lot. Since opening in 1980, the independent, women-owned bookstore has weathered economic downturns, vandals, theft, the advent of the e-book, a pandemic and damage sustained during the George Floyd protests in 2020.

Not to mention that truck.

According to Brooks, however, all of those pale in comparison to BRT construction. She estimates that business is down 50 percent since construction began in October, and that rate is worsening. To top it all off, this is the holiday season, when most retail stores, Capitol Hill Books included, usually do their heaviest haul.
Brooks isn't just the owner of the store. She works there seven days a week without paying herself, trying to hold on to her two current employees after having to let one go in November as the shop's income tumbled. A GoFundMe campaign in 2021 helped Capitol Hill Books rebound after the truck crash, raising a modest sum of just over $3,000. But crowdfunding isn't a viable option this time for months of lost revenue due to construction, Brooks admits.

Denver Economic Development & Opportunity has pledged to assist Colfax's small businesses negatively impacted by BRT by awarding American Rescue Plan Act grants to qualifying applicants. The exact opening date for applications has yet to be announced. The only time frame given so far is "early 2025."

In a video posted in July, DEDO's small-business program manager, Joanne Greek, outlined some of the requirements and qualifications for those grants. Among them is ninety days of financial records proving that the small business seeking a grant has posted significant losses in October, November and December, and that those losses can be directly attributed to BRT construction.
No one from the city has told Brooks about the DEDO grants, she says. The only assistance she remembers getting is "when this guy from the city contacted me," she remembers. "He took me to McDonald's. He told me that we should be more active on social media, that way we could sell more books online during the construction. That was his suggestion."

"But you know," she adds, "I often hear from people who say, 'Oh, we're so glad you're still open.' People have grown up in this store. They say, 'My mom used to bring me here when I was a toddler.' Then I get weird things, like this note I got one day. Someone wrote a note and left it on the door. It said, "I heard you were closing the store. I would like to buy your ceiling fans.' The guy wasn't a collector of books. He was a collector of ceiling fans."

Denver Economic Development & Opportunity has not responded to a request for comment.

Capitol Hill Books is located at 300 East Colfax Avenue, Denver. For more info on its selection or how to stop by, call 303-837-0700 or visit capitolhillbooks.com.