Stapleton Airport’s Tower to Take on New Life, 20 Years After Becoming Obsolete

DIA opened in 1995. With that, Stapleton Airport shut down. Nearly all of it has been turned into new commerce and residential use; but the air traffic control tower from Stapleton has sat dormant for all these years. That’s all going to change soon, and you may want to get down there to check it out!

If you like history and you like to have fun, what’s happening to the old Stapleton Airport tower is going to be of interest to you. If you head down to where Stapleton Airport used to be, you’ll see today that it’s all built up—stores (The Shops at Northfield Stapleton), homes (Stapleton Homes), etc. At Central Park and Martin Luther King Parkway however, the tower from the old airport just sits. Tall and proud. It looks like it’s lonely- waiting for planes that aren’t leaving or arriving anymore. So sad...

Well, people will be arriving again- right to the tower! A company that runs dining and entertainment venues is going to make the old tower their national headquarters as well as a place to eat, drink and bowl! Punch Bowl Social already has one location in downtown Denver, this will be the second Denver spot. They have locations in Portland, Austin, Denver and Detroit, where they’ve taken old buildings and re-purposed them.

The old tower building has the tower (of course), and an attached building with three stories. Punch Bowl will be using the top floor as their national headquarters. The other two floors will be where the fun takes place! Punch Bowl Social is not your ordinary bowling center. Don’t think of ‘league night’ bowling. It’s only going to be six lanes at this location- like all the other Punch Bowls. What you CAN look forward to is a lot of great food, drinks, video games, darts, pool tables, ping-pong, shuffle-board and the like! It should make for a great destination date!

[Source: Denver Post]

There is a taproom at Northfield, Stapleton Tap House. They call their taps ‘gates’ in homage to the old airport. Maybe Punch Bowl Social will call the lanes—concourses!

What old building in Nothern Colorado could be turned into a Punch Bowl?