At this location, at least. The next Denver Christkindlmarket — the 25th — will be held on the Auraria Campus, from November 21 to December 23, 2025.
The move was necessitated by a major construction project planned for Civic Center Park, which sent the market's presenter, the German American Chamber of Commerce - Colorado Chapter, searching for a new home. The Christkindlmarket had relocated there from Skyline Park in 2020, partly because it needed more space during the pandemic, and partly because the 16th Street Mall construction project was about to start.
That was a smart move, as it turned out, because the mall project isn't finished yet...despite original city estimates that had it completed in 2022 or 2023.
City officials and the Civic Center Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to programming activities in the park, have been developing the Civic Center Next 100 vision since 2021; plans were officially made public in October by the Denver Department of Parks & Recreation. By then, rumors of a major reorientation of the Greek Theater had leaked out; since the park is on the National Register of Historic Places, Denver's Landmark Preservation Commission must approve the plans...which it failed to do at a meeting on November 26.
Among the critics are Tom and Laurie Simmons, who contributed to the national historic landmark application for Civic Center Park through their company, Front Range Research Associates. “Civic Center is an incredibly precious resource,” Tom Simmons told Westword last month. “It’s very intact. We shouldn’t be throwing things in to disrupt some of those things that make it special.”
According to Tom, Denver is the only city in the country with a civic axis of a state capitol and city hall across from each other; that axis would be disrupted by plans to put a canopy over the reoriented Greek Theater in the center of the park.
The last Christkindlmarket in Civic Center Park...for a couple of years, at least.
Christkindlmarket
Because if and when phase one of Civic Center Next 100 does get underway, it is expected to continue until 2027...which means that this National Historic Landmark just down from the State Capitol won't be available for the historic celebration of Colorado's 150th anniversary of statehood on August 1, 1876.
