Sunnyside

Sunnyside is the northwest Denver neighborhood between 38th Avenue and I-70, with Federal Boulevard on the west and the railroad tracks on the east, near Inca Street. The Highlands is across 38th to the south, the Chaffee Park neighborhood sits on the far side of I-70, and Globeville starts across the tracks.

Three blocks in 1872, then farms and a smelter

The original Sunnyside, founded in 1872, covered three square blocks between 38th and 41st Avenues, from Pecos to Tejon. The name later stretched over the whole area, most of which was farms and orchards. Lewis Perrin grew sugar beets from Federal to Zuni between 44th and 48th, and the cottonwood windbreak he planted along 44th stood until the street was widened in 1927. To the northeast, the village of Argo grew up around the Boston and Colorado smelter, which burned in 1913 and was never rebuilt.

Streetcars served the area until 1950.

Little houses, old and new

The oldest houses are modest ones. In the late 1800s, one-room brick cottages went up on Osage, Navajo, Mariposa, Lipan and Inca, many with big market gardens out back. In the 1940s, Quonset hut villages went up in the north end.

Most of the older stock today is small, single-level bungalows. The new construction is a different animal, often a tall two-story or a duplex, sometimes right next door to a cottage. Big floor plans and garages are hard to find in older North Denver houses, so if you need either one, plan on looking at newer builds. Not every builder goes tall, though. In 2021, Columbine Builders put up 10 single-family houses on a half block a couple of blocks from Rocky Mountain Lake, and all but one are single-level designs that echo the bungalows around them.

Since a century-old cottage and a brand-new duplex can share a block, compare houses one at a time. Age, size and layout can swing a lot within a few doors.

Chaffee Park and the Federal Theater

Chaffee Park, at 44th and Tejon, is the park in the middle of the neighborhood. Its 2,500-square-foot playground went up in a single day in 2009, built by KaBOOM! and about 200 volunteers, and a "Garden of Flowers" sculpture made from recycled tractor and car parts has stood there since 1997. The Sunnyside Music Festival, which began in 2000 as a backyard bluegrass party, moved to the park in 2007.

On the west edge, the Federal Theater at 3830 Federal Boulevard opened in 1923 as a movie house and was remodeled in 1948. It reopened in September 2025 as a live-music venue with room for 650, so it is a handy neighbor on show nights and a reason to expect some evening traffic on Federal.

Coffee on Pecos, beer on Mariposa

Huckleberry Roasters opened its roastery and coffee bar at 4301 Pecos around the start of 2014, with the roasting done in the garage space next door and a deck out front. A few blocks south, Diebolt Brewing has been making beer at 3855 Mariposa since 2013, and its barrel-aged Vladislav stout took gold at the 2025 Great American Beer Festival.

The train and the highways

Federal Boulevard runs up the west side, I-70 along the north, and I-25 sits just east of the tracks.

The biggest change in getting around came in April 2019, when the 41st and Fox commuter rail station opened just east of the neighborhood. A pedestrian bridge connects it to Sunnyside's houses and apartments. It's served by the G Line, which runs 11.2 miles between Union Station and Wheat Ridge, and by the B Line, which splits off toward Westminster, and it has a 500-space park-and-ride. If you plan to ride the train to Union Station, start your search on the east-side blocks closest to that bridge.