For more than fifty years, a brown-brick building beside the U.S. 36 exit ramp was the first thing drivers saw coming into Boulder on Baseline Road. On Thursday, Oct. 8, BizWest photographed demolition crews tearing it down at 2922 Baseline Road, the former home of the World Famous Dark Horse. The Williams family, which owns the property, is clearing that building and several others nearby for Williams Village II. The project calls for hundreds of student-oriented apartments and nearly 60,000 square feet of commercial space.
When Boulder City Council approved this project, the grocery store and the bar were both expected to stay on the property. Sprouts would move to a new spot on the site, and the Dark Horse would move into its own building. Both have now left before the first new building has gone up.
What council approved last November
The Boulder City Council voted unanimously for Williams Village II on Nov. 20, 2025. The site is 2952 Baseline Road, a strip mall and parking lot between the Williams Village dorms and U.S. 36. The Daily Camera's account of the approval laid out the plan. Everything on 7.96 of the site's 9.86 acres would be cleared except the Broker Inn. In its place would go five buildings with 427 homes, 122 of them in a building just for students, plus 58,365 square feet of commercial space.
The same article described what would happen to the two best-known businesses on the property:
- The Dark Horse would keep operating until the second phase of construction began, then move to a 6,000-square-foot building elsewhere on the property.
- Sprouts Farmers Market would move to a different spot on the property.
Boulder Reporting Lab reported that the architects had designed the grocery space with Sprouts, but that there was no guarantee the store would move into it. The outlet also called Sprouts the only supermarket in the area. The design team described the project as a possible new neighborhood center. It includes a village green for community events, a "woonerf," which is a shared street that puts people on foot and on bikes ahead of cars, and smaller commercial spaces meant to stay affordable for businesses. Bill Holicky, a principal at Coburn, told Boulder Reporting Lab that "the whole idea of this project is to turn people back from motorists into neighbors."
A neighborhood center needs places people walk to. On this corner, a grocery store and a bar were going to be those places.
The grocery left first
Two months before approval, at the Planning Board stage, member Jorge Boone voted against the project. Part of his reason was that the plans didn't guarantee the businesses would come back. Boulder Reporting Lab quoted him:
"I'm very concerned that we're taking out a 15-minute grocery for a neighborhood, with no guarantee of getting it back."
That worry came true. In July 2026, BizWest reported that Sprouts would close its Williams Village store on Sept. 4 and would not come back to the site after the redevelopment. The space the architects designed with Sprouts is still in the plans. It now needs a different grocer, and no replacement has been announced.
The bar is going to McCaslin
The Dark Horse came close to closing even earlier. In December 2025, Boulder Reporting Lab reported that the bar stood in the northwest corner of the site. Phase 1 starts with a building "in practically the same location as the Dark Horse building," according to the project team. The property owner thought the city's subdivision process would require the building to come down by year's end. A city spokeswoman told the outlet that "the city has not imposed any deadlines." City staff and the developer found a way to schedule the reviews so the bar could stay open through mid-March, and BizWest reported that no code change was needed.
That timing explains the switch. The Dark Horse building had to come down for Phase 1, and the replacement space on the site wouldn't be ready until Phase 2, as BizWest reported at the time. The bar served its last night on March 14, its 51st anniversary. Memorabilia went up for auction starting April 9, with the money going toward severance for longtime employees, Boulder Reporting Lab reported. Many other pieces were stored instead of sold.
In April, the bar announced on Facebook that it would reopen in a building near U.S. 36 and McCaslin Boulevard in Louisville. 9News reported that the post promised "the same name, the same charm and hopefully a lot of the same staff," and added, "And yes, the bathroom doors are coming with us." The Daily Camera identified the building as the old Outback Steakhouse, and manager Sean James told the paper the goal was to open "ASAP." CBS Colorado gave the address as 988 W. Dillon Road and reported in April that the lease was in hand but not yet signed. The April announcements didn't include an opening date, and as of October, 9News called the timing unclear. For now, the Louisville reopening is an announced plan with no date.
So the bar that was supposed to move about a parking lot's width away is heading roughly a town over. The 6,000-square-foot building planned for it on the site no longer has a tenant lined up.
What's on the corner this fall
The rest of the plaza is in an in-between stage. Phase 1 is the student-only building, and Phase 2 comes after it. The Daily Camera called the overall timeline "a little unclear." That leaves several longtime neighbors still in place for the time being:
- Carelli's Ristorante Italiano at 645 30th St. still lists dinner hours on its own website: 4 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 4 to 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, closed Sunday.
- Moe's Original BBQ lists its Boulder location at 675 30th St. on its website.
- Cosmo's Pizza, Dairy Queen and the Conoco station are among the businesses in buildings set for redevelopment, according to KUNC and the Daily Camera.
- The Broker Inn and the McDonald's are outside the demolition plan.
Calling ahead before a dinner run is reasonable here. Any of these businesses could change its plans with little notice.
A center designed around two tenants that have left
The housing in Williams Village II will go ahead. Council approved it, Phase 1 is underway where the Dark Horse stood, and the Phase 1 building is housing only. The commercial side now has a different job. Boulder Reporting Lab reported that the project's nearly 60,000 square feet of ground-floor space was meant to make it work as a neighborhood center. The city's planning application lists the intended uses as local businesses, a community-serving grocer, and small and medium restaurants. When council voted, the best-known names for two of those slots were already on the property. Today the grocer and the bar are both unnamed.
For anyone who lives near Baseline and 30th, the next step to watch is the commercial leasing. The student building will go up regardless. The new businesses in the Phase 2 spaces will decide whether the corner works as the walkable neighborhood stop the plans describe, and no grocer has been named for the space Sprouts helped design.
If you live near this corner and want to understand how changes like Williams Village II affect your part of South Boulder, Manzanita Fine would be glad to talk it through. Schedule a one-on-one neighborhood consult, and we'll look at what's happening around you block by block.
