The Latino Cultural Arts Center Brings Las Bodegas to Denver’s Westside Community

Denver’s oldest Latinx neighborhoods, long labeled the Westside, bled out from Auraria, where working-class Chicanos and Mexican immigrants began to inhabit nineteenth-century homes first built for immigrant laborers and railroad workers from Europe. By the 1920s, the cultural mix shifted to Spanish speakers, spreading south and west along connective arteries into the La Alma/Lincoln Park and Sun Valley neighborhoods, where public housing arrived by the ’40s.

While Latinx communities also began to spread to the northwest, many older Chicanos look to the Westside as their symbolic home. It’s where you’ll find Denver’s seminal Chicano theater company Su Teatro, the Museo de las Americas and soon, the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council, which is returning to the Santa Fe Drive corridor this fall.
And soon there will be another addition honoring the area's roots. Las Bodegas, an intergenerational creative hub for digital and visual arts programs located at 1935 West 12th Avenue in La Alma Lincoln Park, is just at the beginning of its transformation from warehouse to learning center. It's a step forward that's been ten years in the making, notes Latino Cultural Arts Center Executive Director Alfredo Reyes, a Westside native.

After tabling original plans to build one three-story building to house all LCAC concerns, founder Adrianna Abarca donated the adjacent warehouse spaces that are now slated to become Las Bodegas. Simply having the land is a meaningful step forward.

“It was game-changing for us,” Reyes says. “It gave us a permanent home in the heart of Denver. Without access to the real estate, equity is symbolic. To own it means it belongs to the arts educators, youth and families permanently."

Constant fundraising brought the dream closer over the years, but a gift of $2.5 million in congressional-directed spending was earmarked for LCAC by U.S. Senator Michael Bennet last December, and another $1.9 million in March from Colorado Creative Industries for community revitalization funding, provided enough capital to bring Las Bodegas to fruition.
Now on the precipice of its development, the future center will be open to the public for free pre-construction walk-throughs of the facility’s empty spaces every Thursday in August (and beyond until construction begins), from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. There's also a pitch: “We are encouraging people to come see the space as a diamond in the rough," Reyes explains, "and also to ask them to become monthly donors.

“So far we’ve done a phenomenal job securing almost $5 million, but we still need a sustainable donor base to expand our footprint,” he adds. “We learned through the pandemic that we cannot rely only on foundation support. We can’t build a cultural campus with a $20,000 grant on the whim of someone else. In the pandemic, the biggest funders stopped bleeding, and would fund the top first. Grassroots support will make the biggest difference going forward.

“We are 80 percent there with our capital campaign. The thing that is just so exciting to me about that space is that it will be one of the first commercial buildings in the city to be completely electric," he continues. "It’s really a big deal. It goes to show how it embodies the values of socal impact and eco-empowerment.”

With that folded in, the LCAC will likely need further funding as Las Bodegas is built out, according to Reyes: “We still need another $2.7 million to close the construction gap and be able to have a significant operational cushion once it’s built.”

But it will be well worth it, considering the services that Las Bodegas is slated to provide. Reyes says the LCAC's Day of the Dead Ofrendas Program will be housed there: "We want to make sure to preserve the handmade tradition of building home altars. Día de los Muertos is not a mass consumer holiday, and we want to help artists and keep the handmade tradition alive," he explains.

He also emphasizes how the ofrendas themselves give deeper meaning to sharing grief in the community, and the observance of Día de los Muertos itself. "How do we have conversations about grief and loss and resilience? There is so much gun violence, substance abuse and other traumas in the community," Reyes notes. "If there is no collective way to share trauma, how does a community cope? This is a contribution to that conversation.”
Beyond that, an extensive public mentoring program is planned. “We are aiming to create a pipeline into the creative economy. Research shows a gap in the age group of artists 25 and under receiving public commissions," Reyes adds. "When we bring young people in, mentorship will guide them from ideation to design, budgeting and working with clients.”

He says the program will focus on the film industry, which has been courted by Colorado for decades with little success. But he thinks hard instruction for young artists in a multimedia lab will make a difference. “So far that future is only high-quality videography. There are not enough professionals here who have the competency to tell stories in a talented, engaging way," he explains. "Educated people in the industry in this state are mostly exported, and the locals get cut out of opportunities. We will contribute solutions toward that Colorado paradox by framing our own local talent to attract the industry.”

Another goal is to install two resident artist studios in the building — one for a fine artist and the other for a digital artist, who would both lead workshops about the creative process.

Beyond those objectives, Las Bodegas will also house a cafe. Reyes describes it as “a place where families can gather while the kids are in workshops,” adding that “the details are not final, but it will be a community effort, working with a local organization.”

The LCAC has not yet set a target opening date; Reyes says it depends on continued fundraising and getting the permitting and work done: “After we finish reaching our fundraising goal, we hope to break ground by the end of the year. Our opening date will only be announced once we get a secure certification of occupancy.”

Beyond that day, the LCAC has more plans for the future back in Sun Valley, making use of additional real estate it already owns and beginning with providing professional artist studios — and the wheels of fundraising will turn again.

Register for free pre-construction tours at Las Bodegas, 1935 West 12th Avenue, scheduled every Thursday from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., beginning in August and continuing until construction starts.