DENVER — Where Morrison Road, Osceola Street and Custer Place combine, Thomas Padilla has lived out a three-decade-old dream to sell bikes and bike parts in Denver’s Westwood neighborhood. Soon, due to a common problem in the city, he will have to leave the only spot his One Stop Bike Shop has ever known.
Padilla isn’t sure what’s next now that his rent has more than doubled.
“When [the new landlord] said it would be higher, I expected too much to afford, but looking at this it’s for sure too much to afford,” Padilla said as he looked at the new lease for the first time.
Old rent: $1,600/month
New rent: $3,800/month
“It just hit me like a brick,” Padilla said.
The problem, in this case at least, has nothing to do with out-of-neighborhood owners swooping in to get some extra bucks. His neighbor, in many ways, had no other choice but to raise the rent.
Gerardo Lopez owns G’s Auto Body which sits right next door to One Top Bike Shop and on the same lot. Lopez has been here for more than 16 years. When the property recently came up for sale, Lopez viewed it as a chance to add some more certainty to his life.
“I put all of my savings into the building, so no one is going to kick me out of here,” he said.
Also, simple mathematics meant he had to do something any new owner would have likely done facing a large loan on a property that’s increased substantially in value. In order to pay his monthly loan payments, he had to increase the rent.
Padilla was left with a rent payment he simply could not afford to make every month, which meant he was out.
His sister, who helps in the shop, called it “a shame.”
“For him to close down after 30 years, you know, that’s not only a loss for him, but for the community too,” she said.
Padilla isn’t sure what’s next. He’s spent decades fixing flats and offering affordable tune-ups. People have grown up around his shop.
“I’ve been coming here since I was a kid,” Ratha Sok said. “He’s always hooking it up with good prices and good parts.”
“Me and my brother started this shop together,” Padilla said.
He said they started it while working on garbage collection. A lot of people, he said, simply threw some old bikes and parts away.
“We brought a lot of good stuff home," he said. "I’d find a bike one day with a bent rim. Next day I’d find another bike and take off that rim."
Now, he’s trying to offload the vast number of bikes and bike parts that remain in the shop.
“God works in mysterious ways," he said. "I’ve really got to rely on my faith. That’s all I can do at this point.”