Department of Community Development
Reference: Downtown Public Realm Study
To: Mayor Gregory Mills and Members of City Council
Through: Michael P. Martinez, City Manager
Prepared By: Emma Lane, AICP, Senior Planner - Historic Preservation
Date Prepared: May 23, 2025
PURPOSE
The purpose of this Study Session item is to present the final Brighton Downtown Public Realm Study, including results from public outreach efforts and final recommendations from the consultant team.
BACKGROUND
In the recent years, City staff has received an increased number of auto-oriented business applications located within the downtown zone district, which do not fit into the Comprehensive Plan nor the vision for downtown as described within the DRCOG (Denver Regional Council of Governments) Urban Center guidelines, the Comprehensive Plan, and other plans regarding downtown. In response to these applications, Planning staff brought forward a Study Session item to the City Council to discuss the future vision of downtown, and for feedback on how the City Council would like to see uses develop within downtown in the future. A few ideas that came out of that meeting were the possibility for a change in parking, a one-way street network, and better signage and public spaces. In December of 2024, City staff contracted with Dig Studio to create a Downtown Public Realm Study to evaluate the public spaces within Brighton’s downtown. The plan focuses on the feasibility of certain changes to the public realm in downtown.
RECOMMENDATIONS FROM DIG STUDIO
Staff has worked with the consultant to provide recommendations for public realm upgrades, and the consultant has compiled these into the final Brighton Downtown Public Realm Study. The plan includes feasibility of traffic circulation changes and recommends a two-way traffic pattern while removing parking on both sides of North Main Street for the first two blocks north of East Bridge Street. This allows for the public realm space to be expanded to 20 feet on either side of the street. In its final configuration, this recommendation proposes special paving and shared street patterns, including curb-less design which will integrate the public spaces and slow traffic speeds.
While the roadway improvements are a main focus of the document, ancillary public realm improvement recommendations have also been provided within the document, in a format that prioritizes items into short-term, medium-term and long-term projects to make each item more feasible. This provides a menu of smaller improvements that can be completed in any order, while also allowing for multiple projects to be completed at the same time if feasible. Please refer to the final document for details regarding specific recommendations.
ATTACHMENTS
● Final Brighton Downtown Public Realm Study
● Dig Studio Draft Presentation