Ballot Issue 6A on the November 5 Denver ballot will ask people living and working near Union Station to renew a debt ceiling for the Downtown Denver Development Authority that would allow the city to carry out a fifteen-year, $570 million development plan.
Meanwhile, people who own businesses near Coors Field will be voting in a separate election on whether to create a Ballpark General Improvement District funded by new property taxes.
The Downtown Denver Development Authority
Colorado law lets cities create downtown districts that collect property and sales taxes; in 2008, the Downtown Denver Development Authority (DDDA) was established with a $500 million debt ceiling in order to finance a Union Station redevelopment plan. With the debt it took on, the DDDA funded major improvements to Union Station, including $11 million in additional renovations completed in July. Now the city would like to extend the DDDA for another half billion and expand the area it would cover. Only about 2,500 Denver residents who live or work downtown will vote on 6A, however.
Currently, the DDDA is limited to projects involving Union Station and its immediate surroundings. Ballot Issue 6A would extend the boundaries to stretch from Wynkoop Street to Broadway and Colfax Avenue, and from Speer Boulevard to 20th Street, an area that covers most of downtown Denver.
During an August 6 Finance and Governance committee meeting, Denver City Councilmember Amanda Sandoval said that expanded DDDA boundaries would help bring the kind of development seen at Union Station over the past decade and a half to the 16th Street Mall.
"As someone who walks to Union Station all the time, to Whole Foods for lunch, I see what that part of downtown is, and I want to see that extend all the way down to the City and County Building," Sandoval said. "Without raising taxes, we can expand the DDDA. And for me, I can't remember the last time we went to the voters without raising taxes."
State law requires a DDDA to write up a development plan before it starts spending, but it doesn't require that specific projects be identified. At his August 1 town hall, however, Mayor Mike Johnston served up a variety of ideas for what could be done with $570 million over fifteen years, like spurring a project to turn half the lanes on a section of Speer Boulevard into grass or adding more parks around the 16th Street Mall and Union Station.
He said he wants the renewed DDDA to invest in "turning the Central Business District into a central neighborhood district, where more and more folks live and work around the clock, and you have playgrounds for kids, and you have dog parks, and you have easily walkable spaces."
Residents made similar suggestions at the gathering, including converting Wynkoop Street into a promenade, fixing footbridges over the South Platte River and Cherry Creek, and installing fountains or splash pads.
Ballot Issue 6A's $570 million debt cap would limit how much the DDDA can take out in bank and government loans, which it would then pay back with the property and sales tax it levies as a special state district. The DDDA's debt won't be on the city's books or accumulated on its behalf, and the passage of 6A won't create any new taxes.
RTD estimated that Union Station generated upwards of $2.4 billion a year for the Denver economy back in 2018. The DDDA was able to pay off its initial $500 million debt before the fifteen years were up because it collected more tax revenue than expected, according to Johnston.
He first announced that he wanted to renew and expand the DDDA in May, when sharing his plans to revitalize downtown and create "a more vibrant downtown." Denver City Council approved putting it on the ballot on August 26.
Creating a Ballpark General Improvement District
Right by Union Station, the Ballpark District is trying to form an improvement zone for the third time. After failed attempts at creating a business improvement district (BID) in 2016 and 2019, business owners near Coors Field, including the Rockies, now want a General Improvement District to levy a tax to fund a Ballpark GID to protect streets and keep storefronts in the area clean and safe.A BID can only tax business owners, but a GID can tax residents of an area, too. Denver has only four GIDs: in Sun Valley, the RiNo Art District, along 14th Street and Gateway Village in Montbello.
Denver City Council approved the Ballpark GID, along with its proposed boundaries and board of directors, in July, but the district needs approval from the majority of roughly 3,200 eligible voters to start collecting a tax and delivering services. Only registered voters who live or own commercial or residential property in the district's approved boundaries can vote on the GID, including more than 200 business owners in the area.
Unlike the DDDA, this issue will not appear on the City of Denver ballot. The Ballpark GID's supporters contracted the local law firm of Spencer Fane to conduct the vote, and eligible voters received their ballot in the mail starting October 14. They have a November 5 deadline to mail it back.
Eligible voters will see two questions on their Spencer Fane ballot: one to approve the function of the GID and the other allowing the GID to levy the tax at the rate it's proposing.
Jamie Giellis, former mayoral candidate and former executive director of the River North Art District, was hired as a consultant to get the GID approved. Business owners in the area want the GID to fill "a doughnut hole of services," she told a council committee in June.
"Ballpark is the last remaining commercial, mixed-use area in the urban core that does not have some sort of additional special district funding to support it," Giellis explained. "RiNo pretty much stops at Broadway. Downtown services stop at 20th. The other mix of railroad tracks and highways and roadways cuts them off as well."
"Ballpark is the last remaining commercial, mixed-use area in the urban core that does not have some sort of additional special district funding to support it," Giellis explained. "RiNo pretty much stops at Broadway. Downtown services stop at 20th. The other mix of railroad tracks and highways and roadways cuts them off as well."
The Ballpark GID would tax $5 on every $1,000 of assessed value for every commercial and residential property in the district's boundaries, but there would be higher rates for commercial properties than residences. According to Giellis, the owner of a home valued at $500,000 would pay an annual GID tax of around $200, while the owner of a commercial property valued at the same amount would pay around $700 per year.
The tax is expected to generate $1.3 million for the Ballpark GID in its first year. The first-year budget proposal includes $750,000 for security, homeless navigation and community ambassadors; $300,000 for landscaping, cleaning and infrastructure projects; and a one-time $85,000 cost to organize the GID.
The boundaries for the Ballpark GID would go northeast from 20th Street, with Wewatta and Blake streets the boundary on one side and an alley behind Welton Street the boundary on the southeast; the jagged eastern edge would extend as far as 26th Street in some parts and only to Park Avenue West in others.
The Ballpark District is home to Coors Field, sleek apartments and popular restaurants, but last year it was also home to what Johnston called the largest homeless encampment in Denver. More than 200 people lived in tents on the block surrounding the U.S. Post Office, at 951 20th Street.
Business owners in the area complained to the city about people avoiding downtown because of the homeless encampments and crime. But even after the city swept the large encampment in December, residents and workers in the area complained about an open-air drug market in the Ballpark District; the general manager of the British Bulldog, just outside the Ballpark District, said he was stabbed in the neck in April by a homeless man who lived just outside the business.
When supporters of the GID spoke at a public hearing on July 7, they urged council to send the question to the ballot, mostly for safety reasons. Candice Pineda, an owner of the fifty-year-old Mexico City Lounge, choked up while telling councilmembers that "we want to keep our community safe, clean and fun for our patrons, for our employees and for, of course, the wonderful residents of Ballpark.”
The motion to send the question to a vote of those within the GID passed with only one "nay" vote from Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, whose District 8 is several miles east of the Ballpark District. Lewis said she voted against it because the GID organizers never provided "additional information" about which neighborhoods the proposed board members lived in.
