Over the first nine months of 2026, four national names opened at Twenty Ninth Street. In order, they were a champion pizzaiolo's fast-casual shop, a design furniture showroom, a sandal brand and a restaurant chain making its second Colorado stop. An electric vehicle showroom announced in late 2025 is now open too. One sandwich chain closed. A planned sports bar across Arapahoe keeps pushing back its opening date. Several of these brands could have opened on Pearl Street or Broadway and opened here instead. The clearest case sits at the north end of the property, in a building that had been dark for more than two years.
The Corner That Sat Dark
Design Within Reach opened on Saturday, May 23, in Boulder 29, the redevelopment of the former Macy's at 1900 29th St. It was the building's first tenant. The furniture retailer leased 8,892 square feet, which is the project's entire retail component. The 154,000 square feet of office space above it still has no tenants.
That split makes sense once you know how the building got approved. Macy's first proposed redeveloping the store in late 2018, when Boulder's office market was in high demand. The plan was to turn the whole building into offices. City officials pushed for retail on the ground floor. The Boulder Planning Board approved the project on a 4-3 vote in September 2020, and City Council approved it 8-1 in January 2021. Five years later, the ground-floor retail space the city asked for is the only part of the building with a tenant. Meanwhile, remote work has driven Boulder office vacancy sharply higher, and BizWest reported in May 2026 that downtown office vacancy was approaching 30%.
Design Within Reach isn't new to Boulder. It used to have a small showroom at 2049 Broadway, and that location has closed. When the brand came back to the city, it chose the 29th Street corridor. MillerKnoll's president of global retail, Debbie Propst, said the new store "embraces passive design principles and a seamless relationship to the landscape." Boulder 29 LLC, a joint venture of Denver-based Corum Real Estate Group and New York-based Fair Street Partners, bought the building in March 2022 for $32 million.
A Year of Arrivals, in Order
The Macy's corner was one opening in a steady run. Here is the 2026 sequence, using the dates local business press reported:
- Late January. Slice House by Tony Gemignani opened at 1805 29th St. on the Plaza Level. The Daily Camera had announced a Jan. 31 opening, and Axios later reported it opened at the end of January.
- May 23. Design Within Reach opened in Boulder 29.
- Early June. BizWest reported on June 1 that Potbelly Sandwich Works had permanently closed its Twenty Ninth Street location.
- By late July. Birkenstock was open at 1750 29th St., Suite 1042, according to BizWest's July 30 report.
- Aug. 10. True Food Kitchen opened at 1710 29th St., Suite 1080. Rivian's Boulder showroom sits outside that timeline because its opening date isn't confirmed. BizWest first reported the plan in December 2025, and the showroom is now open at 1805 29th St. #1124 with posted operating hours. The center's directory also tags State & Liberty, a menswear brand built on performance fabrics, as "New" on the Plaza Level. The listing doesn't give an opening date.
Most of these brands picked Twenty Ninth Street as their Boulder address. True Food Kitchen is the clearest example. The Boulder restaurant is the 46-unit chain's second in Colorado, and the first is in Denver's Cherry Creek neighborhood.
Dinner, Lunch and the Swap at the Counter
Food changed the most this year. Potbelly's closure took away a familiar sandwich counter. Slice House had already arrived, offering New York, Detroit, Sicilian and Grandma-style pizza. You can move specialty toppings from one style to another, and the menu also has ready-to-heat slices, pasta, salads, wings and desserts. The center's directory notes that Gemignani is a 13-time world pizza champion.
In August, True Food Kitchen added a sit-down dinner option. Its menu covers pizza, burgers, bowls, seafood and cocktails. Cinemark Century Boulder is still listed in the center's directory, so a dinner and a movie can now happen without a drive. Trader Joe's is also still listed, and nothing was found announcing a change there in 2026.
Three Doors on the Plaza Level
The addresses show a pattern. Slice House, the Rivian showroom and State & Liberty all appear on the Plaza Level in the center's directory. Slice House and Rivian also share the street address 1805 29th St. BizWest's original Rivian report described the showroom as going into a vacant storefront, so this level now has a pizza counter, a car showroom and a menswear shop where there had been at least one empty storefront.
Upstairs, the center's events page has one item, an ongoing "More Fun Upstairs" promotion that features Expert Stitch, a tailoring and alterations shop. The events calendar doesn't list a dated fall event. For seasonal timing, the promotions page shows a Halloween-themed Sur La Table offer that runs Oct. 1 through 31.
Across Arapahoe, a Sports Bar Running Late
The next opening is just south of the mall. BuffHouse, an upscale CU-themed sports bar, is moving into the former Harpo's building at 2860 Arapahoe Ave. It first aimed for August or September and is now targeting November, according to Axios on Sept. 24. Co-owner Joe Manzanares said the team decided to expand the building's outdated bathrooms and add a pizza oven. That meant more architectural and engineering work, and the plans went to the city for permitting the week before the Axios report.
"We wanted to make sure that being the official partner with CU that we did it right the first time. It will be worth the wait." Joe Manzanares, co-owner of BuffHouse, to Axios Boulder
Axios noted that a November opening would give Boulder a dedicated sports bar before football season ends. As of today, Sept. 30, BuffHouse has not opened, and no specific November date has been announced.
Further Out, at Boulder Junction
The other project to watch is years away. The proposed Pearl Arts District at 3550 Frontier Ave. in Boulder Junction got a favorable mixed-use rezoning recommendation from the Planning Board on Sept. 22. City Council still has to vote on it. The plan includes a 40,000-square-foot performing-arts venue, 30,000 square feet of retail and dining, a 150- to 165-room hotel, at least 500 homes and space for arts and rehearsal. The developer told KUNC that stormwater work has to come first and won't be finished before 2030. The first phase is penciled in for 2031. Bona Coffee Roasters, The Studio coworking space and La Sportiva are already on the site.
For now, the changes you can actually walk to are the Design Within Reach showroom on the old Macy's ground floor, a True Food Kitchen table, a Gemignani slice on the Plaza Level and a sports bar that's aiming to open in November.
If you live near the old Macy's corner and want to talk through what a lit storefront under empty office floors could mean for your own street, Kimberly Fels is glad to share what she's seeing around 29th Street over coffee. Request a Concierge Consultation, and we'll start with the questions you already have.
