DENVER (AP) – It’s about 9:30 on a Thursday morning, and the thrill at Tea with Tae on Denver’s sixteenth Avenue Mall is comfortingly acquainted.

The espresso machine goes, soothing music is piping by means of the audio system, and there’s a clutch of individuals catching up on workplace chit-chat whereas they wait for his or her drinks. That is normally the busiest time of day, in response to proprietor Tae O’Dorisio.

“It might be the 7 o’clock to eight o’clock hour or the 9 to 10 hour,” O’Dorisio mentioned. “Then typically randomly we get a rush from like two to a few, so proper after we’re about to shut.”

All of it sounds fairly typical for a spot promoting sizzling drinks downtown. However behind the scenes, there’s one side of this association that undoubtedly isn’t typical – O’Dorisio isn’t paying any hire.

O’Dorisio is a part of the Downtown Denver Partnership’s Pop-Up Denver program, which seeks to coax small companies and entrepreneurs to arrange store in empty storefronts in areas of town which might be struggling to get well from the pandemic. Collaborating companies nonetheless have to pay working bills, however there’s no hire for a minimum of three months. Companies additionally get a stipend for issues like advertising and design.

The undertaking began final yr with 5 areas on the sixteenth Avenue Mall and $200,000 in funding from town. Now, the Downtown Denver Partnership is launching a second part utilizing a part of a $2.4 million funding funded by the federal authorities’s pandemic support bundle. The downtown booster group is wanting so as to add 10 extra areas for this spherical. They plan to begin accepting purposes from companies in February.

To this point, not one of the members have opted to make their short-term storefront everlasting, however that’s the last word aim.

“That’s our hope,” mentioned Sarah Wiebenson, the director of financial improvement on the Downtown Denver Partnership and the purpose particular person for Pop-Up Denver. “Finally they’ll be given this runway to success, that they’ve the time to construct up a buyer base by not paying base hire.”

Landlords have been happy with the outcomes, in response to Wiebenson, although it means they’re not accumulating hire on the true property.

“When you have got foot visitors coming and going from the pop-up, that will increase the visibility for the lease-paying tenants subsequent door. It additionally reveals the viability of an area which will have sat empty for fairly a very long time,” she mentioned.

Landlords retain the choice to switch the pop-up with a paying tenant if they will discover one. If that occurs, the Downtown Denver Partnership will work to seek out the enterprise a brand new house, Wiebenson mentioned.

Empty storefronts have gotten a cussed blight in areas just like the sixteenth Avenue Mall that depend on workplace staff for foot visitors and enterprise throughout the week. The distant work revolution ushered in by the pandemic has been nice for white-collar staff which might be capable of lower out their commutes and work from the consolation of a house workplace, nevertheless it hasn’t been nice for the eating places and outlets the place they used to spend their cash.

The hollowed-out feeling of the sixteenth Avenue Mall creates a number of points for the companies there. Public notion of security in Downtown Denver is turning into more and more problematic, mentioned Beth Moyski, a vp on the Downtown Denver Partnership, throughout a latest occasion on homelessness hosted by the Colorado Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s that particular person speaking to themselves. … They won’t have any contact with me in any way, however while you stroll previous them or after they stroll previous you, it would make you’re feeling uncomfortable. And that’s how folks really feel unsafe,” Moyski mentioned throughout the panel dialogue.

It’s exhausting to nail down the precise storefront emptiness fee on the mall. The quantity is consistently altering, and a few companies may nonetheless be paying hire even when they’re not open, making it a squishy calculation. In response to the Downtown Denver Partnership, roughly 1 / 4 of storefronts within the Higher Downtown space – which incorporates the mall – had been what the group calls inactive after they began outreach on the PopUp program final yr. That’s since declined to lower than 20 p.c, in response to Wiebenson.

Tea with Tae’s O’Dorisio launched her enterprise on-line in April 2020, when her job coordinating influencer occasions for the Nationwide Cattlemen’s Beef Affiliation slowed to a crawl. Her web site, the place folks can order completely different teas utilizing a subscription-service mannequin, was effectively suited to a world the place folks had been hunkering down at residence and thrived, she mentioned.

She had no plans to open a bodily retailer.

“Retail was hit so exhausting and companies needed to shut down. … It actually didn’t seem to be one thing that might be a good suggestion for the enterprise. So, no, it wasn’t one thing that was on our radar in any respect,” she mentioned.

However when she heard free house was obtainable on the sixteenth Avenue Mall, she figured it might be a great way to diversify the enterprise and get in entrance of extra clients. She opened the storefront in July.

Tea with Tae is in a main spot two blocks from the Denver Conference Heart in what was once a Starbucks. There was a reasonably regular stream of consumers throughout that Thursday morning rush. But it surely’s nothing prefer it was once when downtown was chock stuffed with workplace staff.

Downtown Denver is exhibiting some indicators of individuals coming again, however workplace staff are nonetheless staying away

Jeff Bader, who has labored upstairs on the Denver City Renewal Authority since 2018, was getting his sizzling espresso to go. He mentioned that pre-pandemic, there can be a line out the door on the Starbucks within the morning. He notices that loads of companies now are simply gone, just like the deli that was once subsequent door.

“There would simply be a much bigger, important mass of individuals coming and going. … There’s simply much less folks, so it feels just a little extra empty, quiet,” he mentioned.

O’Dorisio has till February to determine whether or not or not she desires to signal an actual lease.

“We’ve solely had a number of months of gross sales information to see how the house is admittedly doing and the way it’s come again after COVID,” she mentioned. “At this level we’re hoping that we proceed and signal a long-term lease for this house.”