Meininger Art Supply on the Hill closed its doors Thursday as the University of Colorado moves to buy the Broadway building where it is housed.

The sprawling art supply store is one of four tenants at 1135 Broadway, and its owners made the decision to leave Boulder as their lease there expires.

“We want to thank all of you who frequented our friendly store on ‘The Hill,'” fourth-generation owner Henry Meininger and his son, Judson, wrote on the store’s website. “Our customers have been an absolute pleasure to serve and we cannot thank you enough. Our staff there has been exemplary, and we couldn’t appreciate them more.”

The 137-year-old, family-owned business will concentrate on its Denver and Colorado Springs locations, they said. Henry Meininger said in an interview that they likely would have stayed if they’d been given the option to renew their lease, but he added that the cost of doing business on the Hill was another challenge. Judson Meininger said over the last year they’d been looking for a location to buy in Boulder, but they struggled to find somewhere as iconic as the Hill.

“We just wanted to own something, more than anything else,” Judson Meininger said. “It’s really expensive. It’s always been expensive, though.”

He harbors no ill will toward CU, he said.

“We’re not mad,” he said. “We’re happy. We have no bad blood. We love everything CU has done for us, and we for them. We look forward to seeing what they do.”

Others criticized CU, though, for what they said disrupted local businesses and the Boulder artist community. University officials said the property would provide more space for the growing campus and was in line with master planning efforts.

Accommodating CU’s growth

CU’s Board of Regents approved the proposed acquisition in early November. Final purchase of the property, subject to regents’ approval of the transaction, is expected to occur before Jan. 31, according to regent documents. They capped the sale at $4 million plus closing costs.

K.C. Schneider, the building’s current owner, declined to comment because the sale isn’t final yet.

The building has three remaining tenants: Free Range Geeks, Freakys and Roxie’s Tacos.

David Young, president of IT business Free Range Geeks, said tenants first became aware of the proposed sale on Nov. 15, when property management company Dean Callan emailed them a legal document to sign. He’s unsure where the company will relocate once the lease is up in April, but he hopes to stay on the Hill.

He said it’s disruptive to have to relocate, and pointed to a planned hotel to be jointly developed by the city of Boulder and private partners as another disruption to area businesses.

“Do they think about the little local businesses when they buy up property and kick everybody out?” he said.

Freakys, a smoke shop and tattoo parlor, is scrambling for another Boulder location, with a lease ending in January but the possibility for a short-term lease extension.

“We’re trying really hard to stay in Boulder,” manager Audrey Robertson said. “… It’s been kind of a scary transition because we don’t know for sure.”

Roxie’s Tacos’ lease doesn’t expire for three more years, and owner Roshani Patel said she hasn’t heard anything and plans to stay through the end of the lease.

CU has not finalized plans for the space, including whether to renovate or rebuild, university spokesman Joshua Lindenstein said. It will serve as a swing space for departments that have outgrown their locations or that need to be temporarily relocated as their main buildings are renovated.

“That’s consistent with the master plan,” he said. “The master plan suggests properties adjoining main campus should be considered for acquisition because of that proximity and accommodating growth needs.”

CU’s intention has not been to disrupt local businesses, he added.

“I don’t think it’s the university’s intention to uproot businesses or anything like that,” Lindenstein said. “Consistent with the master plan, it’s an opportunity adjacent to main campus to help us address some surge space for units that are growing on campus. … It creates flexibility when space is at such a premium on our main campus.”

‘Boulder is changing’

Meininger Art Supply purchased Art Hardware and replaced it in the 1135 Broadway building in 2009.

Its closing brings to an end nearly 50 years of an art supply store serving in the location and will be a blow to the Boulder artist community, employees said.

“This is a community for artists,” sales associate Jordan Burkholder said. “This is a place artists go to talk about materials, to learn new things they might not otherwise have access to, and to encourage each other to keep doing art.”

It also was a place where he learned about art, he said.

Before he began working at the store six months ago, he’d been a digital artist, and his new job became an art residency of sorts as the staff taught him about physical materials and encouraged him to make physical art.

“Up until this week, that wall was covered in employee art,” he said, gesturing toward an empty grey wall. “I’d actually just finished my first piece to put up there the day we found out.”

The store’s employees, who number more than half-dozen, have been offered jobs at the other locations, but some are still considering their options. Store co-manager Kari Ruehlen said she’s not going to take the job — though it has been a good job and company — and she’s going to leave Boulder when her family’s lease is up in July. She came here 10 years ago to attend CU and stayed.

“For me, it’s a sign of how Boulder is changing,” she said. “I just feel like when I moved here there were a lot more artists, a lot more freaks, and now there seems to be less of those type of people — less venues, less art community. All the little shops and all the little things I liked about Boulder aren’t here anymore.”

Co-manager Pat Redman said some customers, including CU’s art and environmental design students who frequent the store for supplies for class, have been brought to tears as employees have broken the news to them over the last week. It’s been one of the hardest parts of seeing the store close, he said, and it’s a signal of what’s to come for Boulder.

“I would expect this will continue the gentrification we’re seeing in general throughout Boulder,” he said. “Certainly, there’s a lot less diversity of businesses than there ever used to be. It’s interesting to me that as Boulder has grown and become wealthier, the number of things you can actually do here has decreased.”

Ann Dang, a CU senior studying environmental design, said she frequents the store both for school supplies and to fuel her passion for art. Many of her classmates do the same, she said.

“I’m sure they care,” Dang said of her classmates. “This is the first time I’d even heard it’s closing down, and today is the last day, which makes me really sad.”

She left Meininger on Thursday for the last time, with a new sketchbook tucked under her arm and a new set of pens.

Cassa Niedringhaus: 303-473-1106, cniedringhaus@dailycamera.com