Wheat and Bleakley spent the afternoon delivering a box of dining guides and a commemorative beer to a half-dozen hotels, taking the opportunity to shake each manager's hand and chat for a minute in the process. "Hey, boss!" Wheat says when they arrive at the tropical-feeling Hilton Garden Inn. Gian Gandolfo, the hotel's general manager, also happens to be the chairman of Visit Aurora's board of directors. In it since the beginning, Gandolfo says Visit Aurora has put a face on a previously faceless city.
And it's not stopping now, he says. No longer will visitors assume Aurora is in Illinois. No longer will residents tell outsiders that they're from Denver, a fate the authors of Aurora: Gateway to the Rockies predicted in 1985. "More and more people will come to see themselves as living not in Denver," the last sentence of the book says, "but in Aurora, one of the two principal constituents of the Aurora/Denver metropolitan area."
"Everyone is ready," Gandolfo says. "The stars have aligned."
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Instead of trying to make Aurora a tourist destination they should think about making it bearable for its residents to live there. I live a mile from the City Center and I wouldn't recommend a tourist let alone residents to walk around the Aurora City Center at night. Aurora is Denver's ghetto. Their economic development board is WAY off if they think bringing powerlifting tournaments and tropical fish conventions to Aurora is the best way to help.
i'd like to publish some of these comments in our print edition, ideally with the author's full name and town. If that's okay, e-mail me at patricia.calhoun@westword.com
You know, Aurora may not be exotic, but at least our street names are ... here's lookin' at you, Monaco, Quebec, Havana, Jamaica, Lima and Paris St...
I grew up in Aurora and about the only reason I'd even consider visiting nowadays is for the Fox Theater or if my kid needed emergency treatment at the new Children's Hospital. Good luck with that marketing campaign.
I also am a lifelong resident of Aurora Colorado it is an okay place to live but if I want entertainment of any kind generally I go to Denver. The city is definitely not a place to make as a destination for recreation. What a waste of tax dollars. Sad but true, If you do come to visit bring your bullet proof vest and pack a 9mm or better because the cops are completely worthless and run from the gangs not to them.
I'm an Aurora native, have spent decades living in every corner of the city, and have love and best wishes for this city as such... but I just made the mistake of trying to swallow my coffee at the same time I got to the part about Aurora "making sense" as a "destination city". Perhaps 'Visit Aurora' has yet to 'visit Aurora'.
If I ever get on Wheel of Fortune and win an exotic vacation to Aurora, I'll be pissed.
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