Seattle-based evo, a national e-commerce leader among outdoor and action sports retailers, has acquired Edgeworks / Bicycle Doctor shop on Broadway in Denver.

Evo, founded by pro skier Bryce Phillips, began as an internet store in 2001 but has expanded with wildly popular action sports and outdoor gear stores in Seattle and Portland, Ore. The company’s third brick-and-mortar store in Denver will elevate Edgeworks’ 22-year history of ski and bike service alongside evo’s multi-channel retail expertise.

Don’t lament it as a loss of a local shop.

“This is a good thing. A great thing, really,” said Matt Hupperts, who has built his wintertime Edgeworks and summer-months Bicycle Doctor into one of the Front Range’s top gear service centers.

Hupperts has seen many shops close in recent years, including the soon-to-shutter Sports Castle Sports Authority store two blocks away on Broadway.

His focus on service rather than retail has kept him afloat as e-commerce has roiled independent retailers in the outdoor industry.

“It’s been really good for us over the last few years, but I was hitting a point where I couldn’t really grow without taking out loans or joining with someone else,” said Hupperts, who will manage service, repair and demos for the new evo Denver. “I needed to make a change that was going to allow my business to continue and grow and give myself a position so I have a future and keep the whole service angle viable that I’ve been growing for 22 years.”

Few partners could enable Hupperts to keep his service business alive while growing a retail shop, he said.

Evo is a model in the newfangled “omnichannel” retail realm, where brick-and-mortar stores are community gathering places that promote sales at the store, online and through mobile apps. Evo pretty much encapsulates the new-school retailer ideal of “click and mortar,” with a growing stable of shops and a vibrant online presence.

The company’s La Familia program is the e-commerce answer to adding customer service after the sale. La Familia has evo partnering with local shops in outdoorsy towns such as Bozeman, Mont., and Bend, Ore. Buyers can pick up evo-purchased gear without any shipping costs at those independent shops, and the shops typically get ancillary sales and hopefully land a loyal customer for service on boards, bikes and skis.

The idea behind evo’s La Familia is that evo gets the sales but local ski and bike shops can retain the service angle that makes them vital in their community, without the overhead of stocking gear that has to be priced to compete with large-scale retailers such as Amazon, Backcountry.com and, well, evo.

The acquisition of Edgeworks / Bicycle Doctor is a step beyond La Familia. It combines the service of the long-established local shop with evo’s vibrant approach to retail, which includes shops that have art galleries, movie screens, stages for live music and even a skatepark. Evo thinks its surf-skate-ski-bike sales along with its growing collection of destination-type stores makes it stand out in the evolving world of sports shops.

“Retail is pretty tumultuous right now,” said evo’s head of marketing, Graham Gephart, noting the recent collapse of national sporting goods chains such as Sports Authority, Sports Chalet, PacSun and Eastern Mountain Sports. “I think there are a lot of questions out there about the future of retail, but we feel like we have a unique focus.”

Gephart said evo will expand the Edgeworks space from 2,000 square feet to about 9,000 square feet, with a grand opening in September or October. The company always has wanted to be in Colorado, Gephart said, noting that the state is home to many evo.com shoppers.

“Our own brand of retail — halfway between outdoor and action sports — we think is a really good fit for the market that isn’t really served at the moment. We think we can bring something fairly unique to Colorado,” Gephart said. “We think there’s a huge potential for retail there.”