Former Tattered Cover co-owner and CEO Kwame Spearman is turning the page in his bookselling career.
“Hopefully, second time will be a little bit more of a charm,” Spearman said.
The 41-year-old plans to open a bookstore with “soul and substance” at 1700 Humboldt St. in City Park West. He and a partner bought the 9,000-square-foot building for $2.9 million this week, records show.
Spearman and fellow Denver native David Back led an investor group that bought Tattered Cover in December 2020, describing it as a business devastated by the pandemic. Spearman served as CEO until April 2023, when he stepped down amid an unsuccessful run for the Denver school board. Prior to that, he briefly ran for mayor.
The bookstore chain opened locations in Colorado Springs and Westminster under Spearman’s tenure, but neither lasted more than two years. The business lost over $650,000 in the first nine months of 2023, ultimately filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy that October. It sold last summer to Barnes & Noble for $1.8 million.
“Tattered Cover losing its independent status was disappointing to a lot of people, including me,” he said.
Spearman wants to open his new bookstore, dubbed Denver Book Society, by spring 2026. He said it will take about 3,500 square feet of the former Humboldt Kitchen + Bar restaurant, which closed two years ago after a decade on the corner.
He is considering turning the restaurant’s former kitchen into a smaller, approximately 2,000-square-foot eatery.
The 9,000-square-foot property is also home to White Pie pizzeria and Mexican joint Dos Santos. Both have several years left on their leases. The property was sold by Steve Kursh, an individual from New York who bought the building for $3.8 million in March 2019. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Kursh was represented by Dorit Fischer and Hayden Hirschfeld of NAI Shames Makovsky. Spearman’s broker was Tyler Bray of Cushman & Wakefield.
Before settling on 17th and Humboldt, Spearman was looking a little further east at Continuum’s 9th + CO development. He considered leasing space in the 26-acre mixed-use development at 9th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard, but said the developer’s recapitalization of the property put those plans on ice.
Spearman wasn’t discouraged. To be a truly independent bookstore, he figured he’d have to own his own real estate, too.
Fortunately, there was a familiar place out there for him. The 1700 Humboldt was once home to Strings, a restaurant that operated in City Park West for 27 years before closing in 2013.
“I think it’s a super awesome location. Growing up in Denver, whenever I could get someone to pay for my meal, I would take them to Strings,” Spearman said.
Spearman has one partner on the deal, Rich Garvin, a philanthropist from San Francisco. Garvin came to Denver during the pandemic and currently serves on the board of Opera Colorado and as the athletics committee chair at the Denver Athletic Club.
The two had made a bid to maintain control of Tattered Cover once it entered bankruptcy in 2023, Spearman said. He’s been working as a consultant to school districts and nonprofits since.
At Denver Book Society, the plan is to become a community hub, with events and programming complementing the literature inside. It’ll stand out, he said, by what it stocks.
“Books that you can easily find on Amazon, you can find on Amazon,” he said. “You come into our store and have a best-in-class staff opportunity that recommends a book that you wouldn’t have found otherwise.”
Could that have been done when he ran Tattered Cover? Spearman said he’s learned from his first run as a bookseller.
“I think a combination of its history, the pandemic and me being a first-time bookstore owner made that incredibly challenging, but in my role I saw the potential of what or how a bookstore could really impact the community and we plan to do just that.”
Full story via BusinessDen
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