Barquentine Brewing Co. lease approved at Westminster’s Rodeo Market

WESTMINSTER — Westminster’s long-empty Rodeo Market could soon get a breath of new life in the form of Barquentine Brewing Co.

City officials this week approved an offer of a lease agreement with the Edgewater brewery to open a brewpub at the 3915 W. 73rd Ave. site.

The Rodeo Market, built in the mid-1940s and home to Westminster’s first grocery store, has been empty for years. 

The city bought the historic property in 2004, and in 2018 began planning to redevelop Rodeo Market into the Olde Westminster Pub and Tavern. Those plans collapsed during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Westminster staffers estimate that it will cost about $3.5 million to update the building, money that the city could recoup from rental payments from Barquentine or other future tenants.

The brewery’s monthly rent will start at zero dollars for the first year and gradually increase each year $5,372.50 in the 10th and final year of the initial lease term, a city memo shows. 

Should the parties sign the lease, Barquentine would be allowed to operate a “brewpub, offering craft beer, wine, spirits, occasional live music and events,” along with a limited food menu, the memo said. 

Westminster City Council approved the lease offer to Barquentine’s parent company Knu Brew LLC overwhelmingly, with Councillor Kristine Ireland serving as the sole dissenting vote.

“I think it’s going to be too much money,” she said of the city’s work to rehabilitate the Rodeo Market space.

The building improvements required to welcome Barquentine would be “too specific,” and it would be difficult to lease the space in the future to any other user but a brewpub, she said.