Getting Down to Business: Six More Ideas to Bring Back Downtown

For last week's cover story, "A Broken Heart," I suggested ten things Mayor Michael Johnston could do, now, to help bring downtown back from COVID, construction projects, crime and a general bad rap. None of them came up on January 29, when he listed his six areas of focus in 2025, but he did note that he wanted to make this "America's most vibrant city"...and said the 16th Street Mall should be fully reopened by summer.

In the meantime, my list inspired a flood of responses (read some of them in the new issue coming out today), including the following from a longtime denizen of Denver who requested anonymity because, well, he lives here and loves it, despite the missed opportunities.

Summer Night Market. Next to free space on the Mall or close 14th Street; put bands on corners. The market would attract artists to sell their works, food specialists, bakeries, anyone who wants to participate. Limited food trucks, because we want people to eat in restaurants, but revised open container laws I was just in Savannah, which has a great, simple, open container law — beer and wine only, sold at an authorized booth that checks IDs and puts on wristbands, has to be in a plastic see-through cup with no lid. That’s it. So beer and wine in see-through cups; all other alcohol illegal. however, any restaurant can sell beer and wine to go in the same clear cup with wristbanded ID.

Monthly tour and lunch program. You meet for a thirty-to-forty minute tour of the Denver Performing Arts Complex, Brown Palace, Museum of Western Art or the Mint, followed by a group luncheon at a walkable restaurant. Reservations mandatory, it’s $25, thirty people max. Westword covers like it’s the second coming of Christ and makes it a hot event with everyone wanting to host it. Perfect for people who now only come downtown for theater. Invite two influencers for free each month to publicize.

Downtown Denver Partnership has to hire private event coordinators. The team that brought pickleball and green carpet downtown (and passed on Taste of Colorado) is not capable of putting on stellar events. Private experts can be brought in with goals and measurable objectives of crowd size they have to hit. The people who do Oktoberfest on South Pearl Street are amazing, and there are other professional event planners.

Assign blocks to companies like parts of highways are assigned to companies. It’s that company’s job to do “super cleaning of the block,” observe activity on the block, work with businesses on the block, and bring their weight to the city and the Partnership, if needed. The DaVita Block would be named with their logo and you better believe they will make that block shine. Broncos block, Nuggets block, etc.:Tthey don’t police it or clean it, but if the block is tagged or needs cleaning, they report it to the proper agency.

A campaign: “If you can do it in Europe, you can do it here!” Call upon citizens who travel to bring the good ideas they see while traveling back to Denver. We’re already passed the tough one — the Free the Nipple movement. It’s perfectly legal to expose a nipple in Denver. Now let’s get some more European ideas going.
and one more...

Do the Walt Disney Walk. Every day, Walt would walk Disneyland and discover things. A garbage can was five steps further away than it should have been, a sign was not readable. He would study the people and see where they had any type of difficulty navigating the park. He was very big on signage, because signage would not only direct people but it would make the park seem more exciting: “This way to Fantasyland!” “This way to Tom Sawyer Island!” Downtown RTD stations should be filled with signs that lead people to the museums, attractions, theaters, convention center. Coming out of Union Station, you should be assaulted by signs leading to Coors Field one way, Ball Arena the other, art museums, theater, all with how many minutes' walk to get there. People should be overwhelmed by how many things there are to do. They do have maps in cases on the Mall (those where the glass hasn’t been broken), but they're too small and not flashy. Signage has to give the feeling that you’ve entered a theme park, not the strange, empty and dreadful world that you encounter getting off the light rail at Walgreens. Maybe use team logos on the signage? Bright, festive colors. Signs are cheap. Instead of being all alike, uniform and boring, maybe they could all be designed by different artists, like they used to have different benches. Color! People should leave saying, “Boy, downtown is colorful. In a good way!”

What do you think of these ideas? Do you have others for downtown? Send them to [email protected].