Denver Creates: City Announces New Cultural Plan

More than forty years ago, 36-year-old dark-horse candidate Federico Peña rode to victory as Denver's mayor under the banner "Imagine a Great City." Under Peña, the city released its very first arts plan in 1989. Twenty-five years later, after the merger of the Theatres & Arenas Division and the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs into Denver Arts & Venues, the city revealed a new plan in 2014, Imagine 2020.

And now, five years and a pandemic after that plan expired, the city just announced Denver Creates, a roadmap for the next decade.

Mayor Mike Johnston, himself somewhat of a dark horse elected mayor of Denver in 2023, announced the plan to a large gathering at the McNichols Building in the heart of an "arts city" that already has a world-famous venue in Red Rocks, as well as the largest performing arts complex in the country. Now it's also going to celebrate the "rich and diverse community of artists," he said, outlining the four parts of this "incredibly exciting" plan.

The first is that "Denver should be in the business of opening the canvas of this city for more and more artists," he said, which means opening up the Denver Performing Arts Complex. "Even the biggest stages in the city are open to all artists," Johnston added.

And then the mayor cued the applause, in keeping with a career that includes starting an arts school when he was a high school principal in Thornton twenty years ago. That was another tough economic time, he noted, and when economic times are tough, the arts are often the first thing that get cut at schools.

The second part is "creating a downtown arts marketplace," which will include an artists-in-residence program and eventually event artist residences.

Cue applause.

Third: "Focusing all of our collective resources on how we amplify and brand the art coming out of this community," Johnston said. That includes a public awareness campaign, using all of the city's communications channels.

And "big idea number four"? Making sure that young people are included and encouraged.

Cue applause again.

Helping fund these four parts: a $500,000 commitment from the city.

“From our public art programs to our cultural investments and iconic landmarks, Denver is, and always will be, an arts town,” Johnston concluded in a concurrent announcement of Denver Creates.

In fact, 75 percent of the residents surveyed during the creation of Denver Creates said they considered the city an "arts town."

Over 3,000 people provided input, according to Denver Arts & Venues Executive Director Gretchen Hollrah. “Through surveys and more than 100 in-depth interviews, Denver Arts & Venues asked the Denver arts and culture community what they need to thrive."

In addition to the four-part plan outlined by Johnston, there will also be a biennial summit on the progress of the plan. “This is our collective call to commit to arts and culture in Denver, together," said Hollrah.

When the Arts & Venues team started working on the plan, the Kennedy Center was still the Kennedy Center, and the National Endowment for the Arts was still actually supporting the arts.

"In our world in 2025, some doors are closing right now — figuratively and literally," she noted. But as her daughter, an artist just back from college, told her many years ago: "When a door closes, you open it. It's a door, that's what you do."

Denver Arts & Venues is holding a four-hour session to roll out Denver Creates with the arts community at McNichols today, May 14. Find more information at denver-creates.com.