West Colfax

West Colfax is the West Denver neighborhood between Sheridan Boulevard and Federal Boulevard. Its north edge follows 17th and 19th Avenues, with Sloan's Lake sitting just past it, and Lakewood Gulch runs along the south side. Cross Sheridan heading west and you're in Lakewood.

A town on the road to Golden

This started as its own place. The Town of Colfax, named for Vice President Schuyler Colfax, incorporated in 1891 with about 300 people. Its main street was Golden Avenue, the wagon road between Denver and Golden, and it got renamed Colfax Avenue in 1896. Denver annexed the town a year later. Colfax was paved in 1914 when it became a state highway, later US 40, and for decades it was the way in and out of town.

Bungalows on one lot, townhomes on the next

A lot of the older housing stock is bungalows built between 1920 and 1940, with postwar houses filling in after that. The city rezoned much of the area in 2010 to allow multifamily housing, and builders took the hint. By 2018, every one of ten blocks along 13th, one block south of Colfax, had at least one lot scraped and rebuilt, and almost nowhere else in Denver came close. Zenobia, Xavier and Perry Streets all saw rows of townhomes go up where single bungalows had stood. Some builders fit four or five units on what used to be a single-family lot.

What that means for you: many blocks here mix a 100-year-old bungalow, a postwar house and a brand-new three-story townhome side by side. If you're buying an older house, look at the lots around it, because the neighbor's bungalow could become four townhomes. If you're buying new, plan on a compact footprint: one builder's 34 townhomes here averaged about 1,200 square feet each.

The old St. Anthony hospital site

St. Anthony Central Hospital ran on the neighborhood's north side from 1892 until it moved to Lakewood in 2011. The buildings came down in 2013, and the Lakehouse condo community now sits on the site. Sloan's Lake and its park are right across 17th, and they get their own page.

Steam baths and Czech lagers on Colfax

Lake Steam Baths, at 3540 W. Colfax, has been open since 1927, and its neon sign is one of the landmarks of the avenue. It's an old-school Russian and Turkish bathhouse with a steam room, sauna and whirlpool, and men and women use it on different days. It sold in 2022, and tentative plans for the site include a hotel with a new bathhouse on the ground floor.

A few doors west, Seedstock Brewery opened in 2015 in a former auto garage at Colfax and Lowell. It stands out for Czech-style lagers, from a Bohemian pilsner to a half-dark polotmavy, plus German styles like dunkel and altbier.

Light rail along the gulch

The W Line light rail runs along Lakewood Gulch, on the neighborhood's south edge. Sheridan and Decatur-Federal stations have parking, and Perry and Knox are walk-up stops. The line opened in April 2013 and runs 12.1 miles in all, east to Union Station and west to Golden. The Denver stretch of the gulch has a bike path alongside it.

Colfax itself is on the city's list of high-injury streets. Denver has a project planned between Sheridan and Irving with new medians, curb extensions and better crossings, and the city and CDOT are studying a rebuild of the Colfax and Federal interchange. If you'll be crossing Colfax on foot every day, walk the crossings near the house you're looking at before you commit.

What the city plans next

West Colfax is one of six neighborhoods in the West Area Plan, which City Council adopted on March 28, 2023. The plan steers taller, denser buildings toward main corridors and transit stations. Expect more construction along the avenue and near the stations in the years ahead.