Civic Center Park will be open and fenceless by mid-August

They're getting close! Updates to Civic Center Park have shuttered many of its features for months as crews repair work funded by $9.5 million from the Denver Better Bond Project. Surrounded by fences, the park closed to the public in March and partially re-opened in April, and now there's an end in sight: "I'd say mid-August is when we expect the fencing to be completely gone," Parks and Recreation spokesman Jay Clark says.

This estimated deadline comes after repairs to the irrigation and concrete pathways of the park's Broadway Terrace, Seal Pond, Greek Theater and Voorhies Memorial. Most recently, Parks and Rec crews replaced the sod at the Broadway Terrace, and they will continue this effort at the north and south of the park in July. From there, the sod should be established in about thirty to 45 days, a period that extends the park's need for fencing.

Those fences will adjust briefly for Pride Fest on June 16 and 17 and a handful of pre-scheduled events in the interim. On Monday, the Denver Police Department began enforcement of the city's new urban camping ban, which prohibits camping on any Denver property without permission. The morning after, Civic Center Park and its neighbor across Broadway, Lincoln Park, appeared emptier than they had been in weeks.

At least until lunchtime. Yesterday, Civic Center Eats drove into the park for the seventh year in a row, bringing dozens of food truck to the center of the park to offer a variety of local cuisines to a hungry public. This year, the program will return to the park from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. most Tuesdays and Thursdays until the weather turns chilly around September 27.

And by that time, the park could be well on its way to a national title. The entirety of Denver's Civic Center is currently in the running to be named a national historic landmark through the National Park Service. If approved, it would be Denver's first area to snag the honor, and it could bring in federal grants to the city.

The nomination, which includes the State Capitol, Civic Center Park, Veteran's Park, the McNichols Building and the City and County Building, went to the NPS staff before continuing to an advisory board toward the end of May. The board voted unanimously to recommend that the Denver Civic Center be designated a national historic landmark, says Clark, and that recommendation will now go through the National Park Service director to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, who makes the final decision.

The remaining steps could take from three to nine months, says Lysa Wegman-French, historian for the National Park Service, and they don't follow any specific deadline.

More from our News archive: "Civic Center in the running to become a national historic landmark."