CU Boulder opens storefront selling surplus, secondhand items

Chairs for $10 and like-new toolboxes for $5. Staplers, books, posters and art for $1. A $120 laptop, and an exercise bike for $150.

Those are some of the items available for purchase at the University of Colorado Boulder’s new surplus store at 3300 Walnut Street Unit A in Boulder. The university opened the storefront on Monday to sell its used, extra equipment to the general public.

“The public can come and get a cheaper computer, cheaper chair, cheaper desk, cheaper table,” CU Boulder Property Services Program Manager Denise Worthington said. “Our number one goal is to keep stuff out of the landfill. We don’t want to throw it away if we don’t have to.”

Items available at the surplus store include chairs, computers, printers, electronics, office supplies, tables, books, toolboxes, bookshelves and stools.

Francisco Galindo, the supervisor of the CU Surplus Store, keeps the store stocked, supervises its operations and prices items. He’s worked at the university for 18 years and said the storefront was a long-term goal for many.

“A lot of the items that we do get are still functional and well preserved and in good condition so that we can resell them and have someone else use them,” Galindo said. “That’s basically why I was really hoping for the store.”

Most of the items at the store come from different departments at CU Boulder, from English to physics to engineering. Worthington said the store also works with the Colorado School of Mines and CU Denver. The revenue from the sales is split between the department it came from and Property Services.

While the public storefront is new, the surplus store is not. For decades, CU Boulder’s surplus store was available by appointment only and during biannual auctions. Worthington said she immediately recognized the need for a public storefront when she was hired seven years ago.

“If we didn’t have enough space, we had to put something in the trash,” Worthington said. “The hope now is more people will have access to these cheaper items, more things will move and we can keep more things out of the landfill.”

Brandon Brown is an electronics specialist at CU Boulder. He receives used computers and electronics from the academic departments, identifies items that might have resale value, erases hard drives and conducts basic testing to ensure the product is ready to be sold.

Pricing on desktops and laptops varies based on condition, specs and newness but typically won’t exceed a few hundred dollars. One shelf of laptops at the store on Monday, for example, were priced at $120.

“It’s always good to get as much life as we can out of these things,” Brown said. “The longer we can keep them functional and being useful and out of landfills or wherever they might end up, the better. Plus, we are in the fortunate position of getting to offer people good, affordable deals on things. Looking at prices on new computers can be a little daunting sometimes.”