DENVER — COVID-19, crime and construction have all been part of the fall of Denver’s 16th Street Mall. The City of Denver and the Downtown Denver Partnership (DDP) want to change the narrative this summer.
A reopening event is set for the weekend of May 30, when most of the construction is set to be complete. The project is set to be fully completed sometime this fall.
The reopening weekend will happen the same weekend as the Outside Music Festival at Civic Center Park.
“We’ll have a big street festival going on at that time with booths and artists and music and concerts, and just a lot of really fun moments that will draw tens of thousands of people back downtown,” said Kourtny Garrett, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership. “We want to celebrate. We want Denver to come back. We want all of Denver to feel again that 16th Street is a part of our entire community.”
DDP already has a $400,000 contract with the city to revamp the mall and is proposing another $1.5 million to “amplify” those efforts, according to Garrett.
The plan is to bring “activations” or reasons to draw people to downtown. That will mean recruiting and paying local musicians and artists to refresh vacant storefronts and space along the mall, along with setting up larger events and interactive public art displays.
“We've seen proven in the data, particularly over the last two years, that our average daily pedestrian volume continues to steadily climb, and then we see big spikes when we have big special events,” Garrett explained. “We need to not only rebuild that community and business confidence in 16th, we need to protect that investment and bring more opportunity forward for our local businesses and for Denverites as a whole."
- View the 16th Street Mall activation proposal below
Under the proposal, about half a million dollars would go to beefing up the partnership’s private security team.
Garrett said in addition to security, DDP has two full-time security outreach workers “engaging with those who are in crisis and in need, and they are helping to navigate and create long-term solutions.” The Denver Police Department has already upped its presence along the mall after January’s deadly stabbing incidents.
Ryann Derrick works at a restaurant a couple of blocks from the mall. He said the past two years have been “horrible” for businesses in the area, but he is more hopeful than skeptical.
“I’d love for it to be a place where I can go down again and spend some money and spend some time,” he told Denver7. “If 16th Street Mall becomes what they promise it to be, I'd absolutely come down there and check it out more often.”
Denver City Council’s Business, Arts, Workforce, Climate & Aviation Services Committee is set to discuss the $1.5 million proposal on Wednesday.
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