Aurora Looking Into Creating a Downtown Improvement District, Needs Voters Approval

The City of Aurora is working with a consultancy to gauge the interest of East Colfax area residents in forming a small special district aimed at injecting money and life into its historic downtown, an area that was an epicenter of controversy last year. 

"The whole purpose of this is economic and neighborhood vitality," says Andrea Amonick, the retail and redevelopment manager for the city. "It's a way to make sure the neighborhood is involved in the projects that are selected to improve the neighborhood."

Mayor Mike Coffman and the Aurora City Council believe the area would take off economically with special district improvements funded by new tax revenue and overseen by a board.

"I think that's exactly what will attract shopping, jobs, entertainment, walkability to different shopping centers, and entertainment," says at-large Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky. "People of northwest Aurora want things to do, they want shopping, they want a safe area and they want a nightlife."

The city hired the Progressive Urban Management Association, a consultant agency that specializes in crafting urban improvement districts, to help narrow down what kind of district would work with the area. Since PUMA started that process in June, the city has moved closer to the idea of adopting a downtown development authority (DDA), an independent organization that can use tax revenue to fund projects to improve anything from safety to businesses to public art in an urban area.

The City Council directed PUMA to look into creating a DDA after a study session vote on Monday, April 7. Councilmembers also asked PUMA to provide information about a potential Community Development Corporation (CDC) to make sure investment meets community needs. Jurinsky was the only one who voted against the motion directing PUMA, saying that she just wants the DDA, not the CDC because it relies on forming a nonprofit.

The council also had the option of looking into creating a Business Improvement District, which only taxes commercial property owners in its boundaries and focuses on improving businesses.  The City Council can still return to that option, but it's more interested in plan that would support both businesses and residents.

The DDA that PUMA is studying for the city would rely on tax increment financing, a system where revenue from development-fueled property tax increases is used to fund projects.

Denver has a DDA based around Union Station that was recently renewed during the November election to invest $570 million in the area during the next fifteen years. Aurora's DDA would be smaller in terms of the service area and number of people served, Amonick says.

PUMA led walking tours down South Broadway to look at Englewood's DDA, which has been around since 2020, but Aurora wants something even smaller than that as well, Amonick says. Englewood's DDA stretches along the East Hampden Avenue from South Santa Fe Drive to around South Downing Street, but its service area is spread out mostly north of East Hampden Avenue; that DDA is being used to renovate and fill vacant buildings and offices, increase housing density and attract businesses to South Broadway from East Dartmouth to East Hampden Avenue.

"Englewood has businesses, it has housing, it has parking lots [in its DDA]," Amonick says. "I think it's a little bigger than what we're probably anticipating here — larger, in terms of geographic area and number of households — but I think that's a good one."

Aurora doesn't have a large, centralized downtown like Denver, but the area around Fletcher Plaza near East Colfax Avenue and Dayton Street is the city's historic downtown. While it may not be the center of the sprawling, suburban city, it is the center of life in the densest part of Aurora, with the iconic Fox Arts Center, the large Martin Luther King Jr. Library and a public amphitheater in the middle of it.

Fletcher Plaza has been designated an urban renewal area, similar to an improvement district, since 2002. The Fletcher Plaza Urban Renewal Area worked with a total revenue of $34,000 in 2023 and $45,000 in 2022, according to the City of Aurora. Over the years, its tax revenue went towards maintaining city-owned arts facilities like the People's Building, 9995 East Colfax Avenue, and the development plan for the area brought electronic street-crossing buttons, new street signs and small retailers by covering part of the cost of building improvements, according to the city. 


Since the fall, PUMA, has surveyed and talked to dozens of northwest Aurora residents at open houses, town halls, roundtables, working groups, pop-ups, listening sessions and community meetings, according to Naomi Lacewell, a project manager for PUMA. Residents are mostly optimistic about the plan, Lacewell says, with many seeing it as an opportunity to make the area safer and livelier.

The city has directed PUMA to study an area that stretches for about two miles from Yosemite Street to Moline Street and about half a mile from East 17th Avenue to East 13th Avenue. The boundaries of a potential DDA wouldn't be exactly that, but would be similar to the study area, Amonick notes.

The most consistent public pushback has come from residents who fear the development will lead to gentrification or displacing them out of their homes.

"There is a very real fear," Lacewell says. "So we have a really strong emphasis on trying to improve in a way that existing businesses and residents can enjoy the area as it's improved."

Mateos Alvarez, a nonprofit coalition leader based in northwest Aurora, says that the majority of residents in the area are renters, so they're fearful that the development will raise their rents. 

Alvarez likes the idea of investing more in the East Colfax area, but needed convincing. In early February, when he brought up concerns about displacement at a public meeting, Alvarez says Mayor Coffman addressed those concerns with a message that seemed to be "gentrification can sometimes be a positive thing." What changed his mind, however, was PUMA. The consultancy, which has also worked on improvement districts in Parker, Boulder and Denver, convinced Alvarez that it wants residents on board.

"It seemed like the mayor wanted to leave it up to developers to figure it out," Alvarez says. "Where I became more optimistic is at the community meetings and seeing the openness of PUMA. They're creating a large, broad listening campaign, and I think they're really interested in all of us working together."

Strange Bedfellows

Alvarez admits that he and the city's elected leaders are strange bedfellows after being at odds during the Denver-area migrant crisis. Alvarez led a coalition of nonprofits that responded to an influx of West African and South American migrants into Aurora in 2024, while the city council passed a resolution in February of last year to not spend any taxpayer money to support those efforts.

Alvarez says the city council worked with him to tone down the resolution's hostility to nonprofits — but then passed another resolution in October directing the city manager's office to investigate whether nonprofits brought dangerous criminals to the city during the influx, According to Alvarez and other immigrant service providers, it felt like the local government had put a target on their backs.

But Alvarez says he and the council are trying to put those differences aside for the sake of scaling up investments around East Colfax Avenue.

"It's important for community leaders to encourage the community to do something big," he says. "The issues we had during the migrant crisis were political, and this doesn't have to be political. This is something practical."

On top of that, he believes it has the potential to help chip away at bad publicity.

Aurora is still battling a controversy born during the presidential election cycle where national and international media reported that the city and its apartment buildings were taken over by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA). Although the claim came from an embattled landlord accused of severely neglecting his tenants, the incident took a bite out of local business and hospitality, especially in northwest Aurora, where the apartment buildings at the center of the saga are located, Alvarez says.

"Small businesses are suffering greatly. We have small businesses on Colfax saying people are canceling their appointments or that they can't attract people to the area because people are too afraid after what they've seen on the news," Alvarez says. "Repairing the narrative about northwest Aurora is long-term, it's something we're going to have to be doing for years, but I think this starts that work and gets everybody to collectively push back on the narrative that's hurting our community." 

The city started considering a new special district for East Colfax Avenue years before the TdA controversy started, so the district was never meant as a PR solution, city spokesman Joe Rubino notes. However, residents in the area have said during PUMA public outreach that his effort could help undo the damage the controversy caused.

"Many, many people mentioned combating the negative image, the negative reputation of this area that exists, and certainly, the national media attention because of that incident," Lacewell says. "There's a reputational issue, but there's so much going on in this area: amazing small businesses and an amazing arts and culture scene. They want that to be visible."

Jurinsky, who played a key role in adding fuel to the TdA saga, agrees that a DDA would undo some of the damage Aurora's bad publicity has cost local businesses. But she stresses that she wants business in the area, not more nonprofits. The councilwoman voted against Monday's motion for PUMA to look into a DDA and CDC because she worries that a CDC would "open up the gate to attract more nonprofits to the area."

If the council approves it, a CDC would likely be the only nonprofit created, but Jurinsky wants to draw a line and take the opportunity to say that the area doesn't need more nonprofits. According to Jurinsky, "emails have come into council" from nearby residents saying they "don't want any more nonprofits along the Colfax Corridor. They want to see businesses come in."

Alvarez says northwest Aurora has the largest concentration of nonprofits in the city because a lack of city services has left a demand for nonprofit work. However, he agrees that business should be the focus of this effort, as the goal is to boost the area's economy.

The City Council vote on Monday effectively moved the process of creating a special district to a second phase, Lacewell says. Until July, PUMA will "be doing tons of more outreach" and begin drafting plans and details on a potential DDA and CDC, she says. If anyone wants to add their voice to the process, they can sign up for updates and find more information online.

In the end, any special district will only move forward if northwest residents are on board, Lacewell adds.

"Whether or not there's going to be a special district, we can't impose that," she says. "It could be helpful if the city has an opinion, but ultimately, there has to be a desire to form it from within the community."