ASHLEY'S LIST

LoDo District, ED
By Simone Howell Raarup

When you picture LoDo, what comes to mind? Perhaps tower cranes, signifying more new investment going into the historic district.  Maybe you picture the 70-plus bars and restaurants that reflect the entertainment quarter LoDo has become, or the nearly 2500 residents that now call Lower Downtown home.  But you might not picture the controversy and compromise that gave birth to what is now Denver’s premier, urban, mixed-use neighborhood.  In fact, according to Barbara Pahl of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the creation of the district was not just controversial, “Lower Downtown in Denver was a miracle.”

Like any good story, this one is filled with drama and plot twists.  It began when the City of Denver was founded at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River in 1858.  Over time, the roughly twenty three-block warehouse area generally referred to as Lower Downtown became Denver’s bustling commercial center.  However the center of commerce eventually moved away from the warehouse district with the demise of rail transit, the growth of automobile use, and the creation of suburban industrial parks.  By the 1970s, antiquated viaducts cast shadows over a rough area, marked by boarded up windows and depressed property values.  But, underneath the grime, some visionary people saw promise.

A new plot line began in 1974 when Lower Downtown was rezoned as mixed-use to encourage commercial businesses to open in the previously industrial-zoned areas.  Then in the mid-80s, Denver was dealt a crippling blow when its oil-based economy busted. By 1987, downtown had a vacancy rate of 30 percent, with Lower Downtown’s levels hovering closer to 50 percent. Nearly a third of the buildings in Lower Downtown had been foreclosed.  The 1986 Downtown Area Plan identified Lower Downtown as an area for preservation and reinvestment, but despite this between 1981 and 1988 an estimated twenty percent of Lower Downtown’s buildings were demolished.

In the midst of this turmoil, support began growing to protect the area’s remaining historic fabric through the establishment of an historic district. Groups such as Historic Denver and the National Trust for Historic Preservation began working on the issue, along with supportive activists.  However, virtually none of the property owners supported designation. One notable exception was developer Jerry Glick.  It was a hard time—he was new to Lower Downtown, and his stance was not popular among other property owners.  When asked why he supported designation, he said it was simply the idea that he could “do good and do well at the same time.”  He wanted to protect the historic buildings and did not see that as conflicting with his property rights: “It was the same thing – it was good for everybody.”

By 1988, things had reached their climax.  Mayor Federico Peña was a strong advocate for LoDo’s designation, despite the uproar: “Yes, many property owners were against it, but we argued that their property values would ultimately increase with the District. We were right, and now LoDo has some of the most sought after sites in Colorado.”  At a bitterly-contested March hearing that lasted until 2:30 am, the city council narrowly passed legislation creating the Lower Downtown Historic District, over the objections of the majority of property owners.

Throughout the 1990s Lower Downtown developed a name for itself as a revitalizing part of Denver.  Warehouses converted to lofts, sparking positive energy and drawing pioneering downtown residents. The neighborhood got its nickname when newspaper columnist Dick Kreck coined the term LoDo.  Viaducts came down, streetscape improvements went in, and gradually pedestrians filled the new sidewalks throughout the neighborhood.

When Coors Field was built on the northeastern edge of the district in 1995, people were unsure just what its impacts would be. Though initially greeted with anxiety, most people now agree that baseball has been a boon for the district.  In late 1999 the Pepsi Center opened just west of LoDo. Taken together, these two facilities provide bookends to the neighborhood, both in urban design terms and in their entertainment uses.  Today, managing the impacts of the imminent Denver Union Station redevelopment project and supporting high-quality contemporary architectural design in the district are just two issues facing the still-evolving neighborhood.

Increasingly, cities are recognizing that an historic district should not be a thing apart, a static collection of buildings separated from the rest of the city.  Rather, historic districts should be integrated with the evolving fabric of the city, serving to protect an area’s character, but continuing to be a vibrant part of the city as a whole.  Born out of controversy, matured through trial and error, and now a national model of a thriving, urban, mixed-use district, LoDo on its twentieth anniversary is ready for its next chapter to begin.