As downtown continues to grow as a destination for tourists and residents alike, so will nightlife on the mall, says Qualley, who lives at California and 16th streets. "We're going to be at the epicenter," he says. "We believed in the city of Denver enough to mortgage ourselves fully...and we're still here, and that bet is still paying off." — Sam Levin
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Today Denver is always on the lookout for national companies that want to move here. But in the late '70s, downtown became home to an international headquarters when Divine Light Mission leader Guru Maharaj Ji — who'd moved to this country in 1971 at the age of fourteen, then caused a stir when he married his secretary two years later — decided to set up an office here after visiting the city in 1976. "You see, these changes will slowly, slowly start occurring," he said at that meeting. "I don't know to what extent they are going to occur. I can't tell you. I can't predict that. As you know, people really don't have the right consciousness about Divine Light Mission. They think it's a cult or a religion. But what do we really teach you? Still, those things confuse people, because there are some similarities to be found. Anything that's becoming a burden in the path of knowledge, I'm just going to eliminate that."
Before the mall, 16th Street's top attraction was Zeckendorf Plaza and its hyperbolic paraboloid, built in 1958.
Ian Marzonie (left) and John Scheck of Kroenke with an old projector at the Paramount Theatre.
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And he got right down to business, setting up an office in the Kittredge Building, at 16th and Welton streets, where his followers — known as premies — ran a typesetting business that helped produce the early issues of Westword. They might not have been cult members, but they certainly worked cheaply and without complaint, always dressed in the colors of the Indian sunrise.
By the time the 16th Street Mall opened in 1982, the Guru and his followers had moved on. The immaculately renovated Kittredge Building is now the headquarters for Downtown Denver, the booster group that not only envisioned the mall, but oversees the Business Improvement District that spends $2.4 million annually on cleaning, snow removal, holiday decor and other mall services. The path to knowledge may have changed direction, but it's always moving. The original mall was just thirteen blocks long; in 1994 it was extended to the railroad tracks beyond Wynkoop Street, and later it was on the move again, four blocks farther into the Central Platte Valley.
"In my time here in Denver — the last seven years — there have been some very significant developments," says Tami Door, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership, who just presided over the inaugural State of Downtown Denver confab last week. "We have a really strong vision for the mall, and we are steadily working our way through that — as a community, not just as the partnership." And when the mall isn't growing in length, it's growing in depth.
This year, for example, the mall introduced an "enhanced vending program" that not only helped activate the space, but also encouraged new entrepreneurs to enter the market. At the same time, major retailers have joined the lineup, including H&M, "an absolute game-changer," Door says. Today there are over 200 retail establishments on the mall (or within a half-block), ranging from H&M and sunglass vendors to the Cheesecake Factory and hot dog vendors; they collected nearly $10.8 million in sales taxes last year, nearly 32 percent of Denver's total sales-tax revenue. And there's more to come. The addition of 1600 Glenarm and the transformation of Block 162 into the Sage Building energized one half of the mall; the developments will soon stretch to 1600 Market and beyond to Union Station.
"We will always and forever have new and improved ways to manage and improve the mall," Door says, "but it's important to step back and look over how much we've done as a community over the last thirty years, and even the last ten years." And you'll have a chance to do just that on October 9, when the Denver Partnership and RTD host a lunchtime celebration at Skyline Park marking the thirtieth anniversary of the mall.
"When we did the twenty-year plan," Door says, referring to the Partnership's work with the city back in 2006, "we emphasized the importance of a mosaic of districts. The 16th Street Mall flows through so many of those districts, each with their own character.... That's what we love about the mall, that's why it's such a true, fabulous urban space, recognized nationally as the best in the country. If you just stand out there and take it all in, it's really marvelous."
For downtown residents, downtown workers, suburban visitors and tourists alike, it's the path to knowledge...of Denver. — Patricia Calhoun
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It's not quite cold yet, but it will be. And when that happens, Lucy, who asked that her last name not be used here, will spend her first winter in "many many" away from the 16th Street Mall. She might even leave Denver altogether, but she hasn't decided yet. Lingering near the parking lot of the Denver Pavilions, Lucy digs through her backpack for a cigarette. She pulls out a Pall Mall, lights it and exhales.
