After being closed for renovations since late October, Wilderness Exchange is slinging outdoor gear again. But in its 25th year, the Platte Street staple has a new look. The main floor upstairs is now a Black Diamond store, featuring new mountaineering and backcountry skiing gear from the brand. Downstairs sells what Wilderness Exchange has been known for over its nearly 25 years of business: an array of consignment and second-hand gear under its name. “(Consumers) can experience the latest and greatest of core gear and then come downstairs for discounted and used options,” said Wilderness Exchange founder and owner Don Bushey. The store at 2401 15th St. reopened on January 11 after a complete renovation to the 3,700-square-foot main floor. The 2,500-square-foot downstairs also got new flooring and lighting, along with a checkout space to keep the cash flows separate. Black Diamond footed the majority of the bill. “It was certainly in the six-figure range,” Neil Fisk, CEO of the Utah-based company, said of the cost. He described the arrangement with Wilderness Exchange as a key wholesale account that Black Diamond gives “special treatment” to. “There’s a little more incentive built in for Don to improve his margins,” he said. Bushey said the store will run similar to a franchise model, but with more flexibility built in. He will select and sell the product, and Black Diamond will provide marketing and branding support. Bushey also has the ability to add gear, like helmets and goggles, from other brands to make the main upstairs floor. That’s intended to let him stock products Black Diamond doesn’t make, so he can have a one-stop-shop for climbing and skiing enthusiasts. Related Articles Retail | Federal incentives or not, advocates see no turning back to get more EVs on Colorado roads Retail | Ary family buys The Abbey in Cañon City Retail | Solar firm laying off Colorado staff, ceasing new projects in state Retail | TikTok restores service for US users based on Trump’s promised executive order Retail | Construction exec buys ex-Broncos coach’s Denver mansion for $4.6M Roughly 20 employees work for Wilderness Exchange but are separated by floor, Bushey said, due to the different knowledge needed for each assortment. “It’s effectively a store within a store,” Bushey said. Fiske said he had similar agreements with beachside surf shops around the country when he was CEO of Billabong from 2013 to 2018. This deal with Wilderness Exchange is the company’s first foray into the model. “The difference from a franchise is (with that) everything is really well defined. This isn’t,” he said. “It’s more like ‘OK, we’re in this, and we’re gonna figure it out together.’ He’s the owner/operator and steward of the Black Diamond brand.” The deal comes at an ideal time for both companies and has been in the making for over a year. When Fiske started as CEO about a year-and-a-half ago, he visited Wilderness Exchange as part of a tour of the brand’s top accounts. Both he and Bushey said Black Diamond had strayed away from its core of backcountry skiing and climbing. “When I came in, we had the opportunity to double-down and refine and clarify the soul of the Black Diamond brand,” Fiske said. “But with a heritage like BD you want to build on that and modernize and take it forward.” Bushey was in a similar boat. After a volatile post-Covid market, which featured a booming few years followed by a down period defined by too much inventory, he was considering if he had to change his model. He said rising base rents and wages have also caused his profit margins to decrease. “Janitorial service was $20 an hour five years ago,” he said as an example. “But now I’m billing at $35 to $40.” He said the value of the Wilderness Exchange building, which he has leased through 2030, has doubled in the last six or so years too. Though he remained flat or profitable throughout that time, he didn’t know if that was going to be sustainable. So after talking over some of these challenges with Fiske, he called back and asked if Black Diamond would want to have a more built-out shop within Wilderness Exchange. “This just seemed like the planets aligned with Don and us thinking about how to modernize retail,” Fiske said. The new setup allows Bushey to go back to his roots. When he founded Wilderness Exchange in 2000, the goal was to be a second-hand and consignment retailer. But over the years, Wilderness Exchange added full-priced specialty gear and online sales. Each makes up a third of the store’s revenue. But now that the inventory and space is more well defined, he thinks customers will have more clarity. Bringing his total vendor number from over 100 down to 12 is a major reason. “It’s kinda like we selected the best of the best,” he said. “Not just product, but also business-wise on the level of profitability and margins.” The opening also marks a re-entry into the Denver-metro market for Black Diamond, which closed an outlet store in Castle Rock nearly a year ago. Fiske cited unnecessary competition with Mountain Chalet, another outdoor shop in Colorado Springs that is a wholesaler buyer of Black Diamond gear, as a reason for the closure. Black Diamond does have a brand store in Boulder, but Fiske said he’s been exploring ways to get back into the Mile High City. “I think the Denver market has been high on our list with a mountaineering and climbing ski brand,” he said. “We were trying to figure out what’s the right way to be more prominent and it wasn’t necessarily dropping another retail store on top of all our specialty retailers.” Though there is no plan for expansion at the moment, Fiske thinks this could be a viable way to modernize the outdoor retail space. “We’re very optimistic about this idea and concept, but we need to prove it works first and put all of our attention into this location,” Fiske said. “And once we have confidence that we have the formula right, we’ll selectively look to expand to other areas.” Bushey feels similar. He expects 2025 to start slow but tick up in Q3 and Q4 in a year that reorganizes the marketplace. “I think what it comes down to is that the owner-operator franchise model will run better because owners always have more skin in the game than the employees of a company will,” he said. Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.