Shopping for bargain-basement metaphors in a stagnant economy? Look no farther than 1437 Market St., where the Hair Strands beauty salon once catered to an upscale clientele.

For 16 months the ground-floor space has stood vacant, one of hundreds of empty downtown shells that attest to hard times and business failures.

The defunct salon's neighbor cannot be happy about the place's down-and-out look: next door, at 1445 Market, you'll find the offices of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

New tenants' plans for a Russian restaurant at 1437 are now on hold because of the dicey economy, said real estate agent Olga Sedykh.

Throughout the metro area the same vacant feeling prevails.

On South Colorado Boulevard, half a dozen strip malls seem to be doing a striptease - losing franchise food storefronts, coffee shops and electronics stores to economic attrition.

In Commerce City, where, until last fall, greyhound racing fans cheered home their favorites, the once-thriving Mile High Kennel Club has been shut down except for a pair of curtained-off main-floor rooms where gamblers bet on horse races simulcast from Los Angeles or New York.

Duffy's Shamrock, the famous, 56-year-old Irish bar that closed its doors 27 months ago, still stands orphaned and beerless at 1635 Court Place - the parking garage and retail shops that were to replace half the block have yet to materialize.

"I've never seen anything like this," said John Brennan, principal owner of SportsFan, a licensed sports-merchandise chain that operates seven stores in metro Denver. On Jan. 31, Brennan closed the 11-year-old SportsFan store on the 16th Street Mall at Court Place because, he said, "our business fell off a cliff in October."

Chainwide, SportsFan sales were down 38 percent over the crucial Christmas gift season. "We're at a defensive point right now," Brennan said. "In consolidation mode."

A stiff rent increase hurt, too, just as it hurt SportsFan's neighbor, the salon Shear Productions, which is moving to smaller quarters across the street in the Sheraton Hotel.

Meanwhile, the volatile restaurant business has devoured dozens of Denver owners in the past six months - most recently the Aqua Oyster Bar in the upscale Beauvallon condominiums and French 250 in Cherry Creek. "I barely had time to finish my frog legs before they closed," said Denverite Jack Phelan. "What are you gonna do? Big-ticket dining's in real trouble."

Both spaces remain vacant as does, for now, what was once the Italian trattoria Il Fornaio, at 1625 Wazee St., which went under 18 months ago.

Dana Crawford, the Denver preservationist and developer, said Thursday that she has found a restaurant tenant for the handsome space and that there had been plenty of suitors. But she declined to otherwise comment on Denver's real estate downturn. "What an awful question," Crawford said with a laugh.

Much of the California Mall building on the 16th Street Mall is empty after a second-floor food court went out of business two years ago.

At Union Station, the sprawling Lotus nightclub of old continues to gather dust. And at 2510 E. Colfax Ave., a three-house movie multiplex next to the Tattered Cover book store has been dark since Neighborhood Flix shut down its projectors last September.

Reportedly, Landmark Theatres, the art house chain that operates the Mayan, Esquire and other theaters, took a look at the complex, and Bo Smith, executive director of the Denver Film Society, acknowledges it is one of several locations that could one day become a new home for the Denver International Film Festival.

But the final reel hasn't been shot - not on the set of Denver's current scared-money drama.

"Actually, this may be one of the healthier commercial (real estate) markets in the country," said Kelly Greene, a senior broker for David Hicks Lampert, whose company oversees a dozen major properties downtown.

Landlords are offering 10 percent to 20 percent rent discounts and bigger tenant-finishing allowances, he said.

Mixed results: DHL recently signed a coffee shop tenant for the former Sugar Beat Cafe in LoDo, which had been vacant 14 months; but, a ground-floor restaurant space at the Rocky Mountain News-Denver Post building has been empty four years.

How about a metaphor for defying the odds. Developer Mike Plante finished renovating the lovely, 1892-vintage St. Elmo Building, at 17th and Blake streets, last July. Since then he's filled it with tenants - lawyers, a coffee shop, a Northern California-style restaurant.

All full, except for a 4,145-square-foot "hard-corner" space that would be ideal for, well, a . . . bank.

"We're keeping our fingers crossed," Plante said. "I don't sense that life is over in Denver at all."