Empty Land at Colfax and Broadway Could Become Pickleball Courts

The empty gravel lot at the corner of Broadway and Colfax has long been a point of concern for the City of Denver, which has had to handle complaints about the vacant space attracting vagrants and crime.

That corner could now become home to six pickleball courts, according to documents submitted by engineering firm Stantec to the Denver Department of Community Planning & Development. The city itself is partially behind the designs, which call for a detention pond, decorative lighting and colorful fencing or a mural surrounding the pickleball courts.

According to Evan Dreyer, deputy chief of staff for Mayor Mike Johnston (and for Mayor Michael Hancock before that),  the city has been working on safety improvements at the site for the past few years. “We also started to think about, what could we do to try to activate that parcel more so we don't have just an empty, vacant piece of land in the heart of downtown?” Dreyer says.

In January, Stantec facilitated a brainstorming session where ideas like food trucks, art displays, an urban garden and a skateboard or bicycle park were floated. But pickleball ended up being the concept that “generated the most interest, the most excitement and probably the most opportunity for activation,” Dreyer notes.

The technical address for the property is 1532 Lincoln Street, but the lot is part of a larger parcel of land leased by RTD from the Cheesman Family Trust. RTD uses much of the block for Civic Center Station, a transit hub, and has plans to build more facilities there eventually — so any activation of the area would need to be temporary. Recently, RTD redid the existing bus station and Free MallRide hub at Civic Center Station but left the nearby gravel pit untouched.

According to a statement from RTD Public Relations Manager Tina Jaquez, RTD, the city, the Downtown Denver Partnership and neighborhood groups have explored possible uses for the area over the years, but nothing has come to fruition.

“Development has been hindered by a number of factors, including the short remaining term of the lease (less than fifty years), drainage requirements and lack of parking/vehicle access to the site due to its location at such a busy intersection with no option for new curb cuts (driveway entrances), to name a few,” Jaquez says.
Five years ago, the property was suggested as a possible home for the National Medal of Honor Museum, but that ended up going to Arlington, Texas, instead.

RTD is now working with the city to determine the feasibility of the pickleball project, Jaquez says.

Dreyer notes that the concept is still very much just a concept. “There's still a lot of hurdles to overcome, including the complexity of multiple ownership and the fact that this would have to be a temporary use,” he says. “It slopes down, so it's not level and essentially is a big drainage ditch. We have to grade the site, get it flat, and then also address the fact that it is a drainage and stormwater detention facility, so we can't really disrupt that.”

Despite the challenges, he says that the city is highly interested in activating the parcel since it sits at an important corner of Denver, connecting the State Capitol and Civic Center Park with downtown Denver. Mayor Mike Johnston has made revitalizing downtown a priority, and the city is also moving forward with plans to renovate Civic Center Park.

The city's shortage of pickleball courts, and the noise that comes from those courts that do exist, have been hot topics in Denver over the past few years, which makes this idea a potential win-win. Dreyer says the fact that there aren’t residences nearby that could be impacted by noise was considered by the group discussing possibilities.

Dreyer points out the spot is near offices where people work and places tourists visit, so people using the courts might not need parking.

Since the project is in the early stages, it hasn’t yet been determined if the city parks department would run the courts or if a private pickleball operator could be hired to oversee operations; the DDP is also a possibility for overseeing the courts. Dreyer says the city is committed to funding the work to level out the land and build the courts; RTD’s financial contribution would be allowing the use of the land.

“We're very excited about the possibility of being able to do something on an empty piece of land at the corner of Main Street and Main Street in downtown Denver," concludes Dreyer.