Five Points Residents Want Fewer Business Vacancies Amid Special District Renewal

Business owners and long-time residents of Five Points have to prioritize their desires over the next ten years as the neighborhood’s business improvement district (BID) prepares for a renewal.

“We have to go back and make sure we’re meeting the needs of the community we serve,” says Norman Harris, the executive director of the BID. “We’re defining the character, so we’re defining what it’s future is.”

The Five Points neighborhood has a deep African American history and jazz roots dating back to the twentieth century. It’s home to the city’s first historic cultural district, a rare designation honoring Denver’s most storied areas, with other historic cultural districts including La Alma Lincoln Park and La Raza Park.

The Five Points BID launched in 2017, allowing it to generate revenue through a property tax. Nearly a decade in, the BID boasts having invested more than $12 million in grants and relief for businesses, cultural programming and the neighborhood’s infrastructure and transportation. However, the City of Denver requires BID’s to apply for renewal every ten years, and Five Points’s most historic corridor on Welton Street has visible retail vacancies along the ten blocks that run through the neighborhood.

Landmarks such as the 114-year-old Rossonian hotel — the “most prominent building” in the Five Points, according to History Colorado — remain empty, while residents and business owners believe they’re held back by the L Line, the least-ridden RTD light rail route.

According to Harris, the L Line light rail is “one of the bigger things” to handle if the BID is renewed. In recent years, he has openly called for RTD to shut down the L line, which has fewer than 200,000 riders a year while other lines regularly pass one million. A year after the BID commissioned a study of the light rail’s impacts, RTD began looking for a consultant to study the long-term future of the light rail, Harris says.

Part of the BID’s renewal proposal requires that the BID public notice and feedback from property owners. The BID held a meeting with business owners in February, and on Wednesday, March 25, kicked off a series of meetings open to the wider community, including “people who live, work and invest here.”

“It’s given us a chance to listen,” Harris says of the renewal process. “Not everyone is going to be happy, but what we can do is figure out what gets everyone as close to where they want it to be.”

Attendees wrote suggestions on a poster set up for feedback, with ideas including “reduce small business vacancies” and “increase connections to downtown.” One note said the BID’s “corridor cleanups are important” and another that “jazz events are terrific.”

Five Points attracts nightlife to Welton Street with music venues like Cervantes and the Roxy Theater, and it’s the center of popular events like the annual Juneteenth Music Festival and the monthly First Friday Five Points Jazz Hop.

Wanted: More Retail

Darrell Numan, a lifelong Five Points resident, said he makes a living as the “eyes and ears” for commercial property owners trying to decide to whether to buy in the neighborhood. He grew up in Five Points, and attended Wednesday’s meeting to get a sense of what people felt about the neighborhood as it stands. Now in his seventies, Numan said that the Denver Fire Station 3 at 2563 Glenarm Place is the only building that looks the same.

“It’s growing,” he said about Five Points. “We’ve got a lot of development of real estate, and following that, we’re getting businesses. A lot of it’s new.”

Numan credits the Five Points BID with “putting it on the map as an entertainment hub,” but believes the BID hasn’t brought in enough retail to serve the day-to-day needs of neighborhood’s residents.

“Can you come down here and buy something? A shirt? They don’t even have a 7-Eleven,” he noted. “There are a couple of small stores, don’t get me wrong, but you need a diverse area. Entertainment may catch your attention on the night they’re going out, but what about on their way home? What if you need a can of paint? There’s no hardware store.”

Pointing Ahead

Harris owns the Spangalang Brewery at 2736 Welton Street, and he’s been at the helm of the BID since June 2024. He has a rosy outlook on the neighborhood, where five generations of his family have lived and owned businesses.

“The BID had humble beginnings,” Harris says. “In 2017, there wasn’t much of a budget. Then you had COVID.”

The Five Points BID started out with a $200,000 budget in 2017, but it generated more than $500,000 in revenue in 2025, according to the BID’s proposed 2026 budget. Harris argues that Welton Street “is doing better than it was three years ago,” and credits boosted revenue to new restaurants on the corridor like Taco Uprising, Rougarou and Welton Street Cafe (which re-opened in 2024 after a three-year closure).

“There’s tons of momentum,” Harris says. “We’re not just talking about things. We’re getting things done.”

Harris is particularly excited about re-opening of the Rossonian Hotel, which hosted jazz legends like Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Nat King Cole between the 1920s and ’50s. The hotel’s redevelopment began in February, but won’t be complete until 2028.

He also touts the Hattie McDaniel affordable condos at 639 29th Street, which will open in April. The condos will have income limits, prohibiting people who earn more than $72,000 a year from buying units, which are expected to sell for $240,000.

Harris believes more people will come to Five Points when the Cipher, a holistic market, opens this summer, and in the winter, when doors open for the Padel Haus, a national chain of athletic clubs where people can play racket sports like Tennis, Ping-Pong and Pickleball.

Harris wants to see his family neighborhood turn into more of a “modernized cultural marketplace” with “unique businesses” that attract people from different backgrounds while still honoring Five Points’s jazz history. However, the BID renewal process is about “defining the future,” Harris says, and he’s leaving it to the community to decide how it needs to change.

“What stays the same forever?” he asks. “The biggest thing is trying to get everyone to find a vision that we’re all stronger together.”

Last week’s meeting was held at Fifth Coffee House, with more meetings scheduled for Saturday, April 4, at 11 a.m., and April 16 at 6 p.m. The BID is also collecting input through an online survey.