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: January 9, 2025
PURPOSE
The purpose of this Study Session item is to present background and progress on the Downtown Public Realm Study being created by Dig Studio for the City's benefit.
BACKGROUND
In 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 on January 9, 2024, 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. The plan will focus on the feasibility of certain changes to the public realm in downtown, including the ideas brought up at the Study Session meeting in January of last year.
Dig Studio has analyzed a number of the City's guiding documents for background information and has created various draft maps as well as three preliminary options for public realm changes. The consultants also hosted a walking tour with involved parties to go over the scope of the study and to get a pulse on City staff's priorities, which were based on past input from the City Council for the study. A charrette was held on January 17, 2025, to dis...
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