In today’s urban environment we all desire a local dry cleaner, day care, coffee shop, variety of retail, restaurant and entertainment venues—all in a safe, clean, landscaped walkable and biking environment. Such attributes don’t occur overnight or without assistance – tools in other words – which provide the supportive social and physical infrastructure where businesses and families can grow and thrive.

Working to provide the necessary tools for community and economic development along the Boulevard is one of the primary priorities of the Partnership, and the reason for our recent release of a Survey containing possible future Boulevard improvements.

What improvement do you believe will make a difference? You can take the survey and answer yes or no to five possible improvements. You can also populate an improvement you believe will make a difference.

Survey results will be provided in the coming weeks, as well as presented at the Partnership’s Annual Spring Membership meeting in April. Following is a brief synopsis of each question.

Remove the W. Colfax and Federal cloverleaf in favor of an at-grade intersection. The cloverleaf is an efficient traffic manager but is also a space waster. For a pedestrian, attempting to ride a bike or walk through the cloverleaf is not possible to do safely. There are beautiful scenic vistas and significant bluffs to the north and south of the cloverleaf. Bluffs with existing tremendously underutilized property. The properties are remote, isolated. The economic and community potential in opening private and public property to street grade is significant. Further, the positive effect of new light rail station at Howard Pl (W. 14th) adjacent to this area can’t be dismissed.

Promote creation of a special district promoting retail, restaurants, office and residences between Federal and Invesco at Mile High, between W. Colfax to 20th. It’s remarkable to think the Invesco at Mile High site is a very long term location of a pro football stadium and team (and in the past additional sport venues associated to McNichols arena), yet commercial opportunities have always been limited. This section of Federal experiences the closest to blight conditions as what exists in northwest Denver. Only the imagination limits the visionary opportunities in this stretch of Federal Blvd.

Creation of Business Improvement Districts (BID’s) in specific locations along the Boulevard (locations are defined in the survey). A BID assesses a tax on commercial property owners to support improvements in the right-of-way (curb line to private property line). Typical improvements include street trees, irrigation, decorative lighting and paving, and other pedestrian related safety and decorative improvements. Examples of like BID’s includes W. 32nd and Lowell, Tennyson between W. 39th and 41st, East Colfax, and South Broadway.

Implement street car line between the Federal light-rail station at Howard Pl (W. 14th) along Federal to W. 38th, traveling east along 38th to Huron St (directly east of Inca), intersecting with a Gold line light rail station at 38th. As outrageous as this might sound on the surface, a street car is currently under discussion ferrying passengers up and down East Colfax. While ridership would seem to exist for this proposed line, it wouldn’t connect to the existing light-rail system being built in the metro area. The Federal and W. 38th proposed line would connect two light-rail lines (West and Gold lines), providing a pedestrian and car friendly opportunity to access local communities as well as connecting to a larger transit system.

Develop articulated crosswalks along Federal at highly used pedestrian crossings.Articulated crosswalks use decorative pavement treatments  such as brick, stone, colored/patterned concrete to better delineate pedestrian crossings from automotive areas.