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10 30 24 Common Sense Institute's Kelly Brough on reviving downtown Denver study
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Experience stunning clarity that brings movie marathons to life like never before. With Watch3 Plus built in, enjoy free live and on-demand TV right out of the box. Plus, dream all your favorite holiday songs with the iHeartRadio app. Whether it's a gift for the family or an upgrade to your own setup, this incredible value delivers 4K brilliance without breaking your holiday budget. Your Visio 50" 4K Smart TV at Target for just $2.39.99 today. The Common Sense Institute, releasing details from their downtown Denver recovery report, the study examines downtown and the recovery of the area. And joining us now on the KOA Common Spirit Health Hotline to talk more about it is the Common Sense Institute's Urban Development Fellow. It's Kelly Bruff. Kelly, thank you so much for your time this morning. Good morning, Gina. Great to be here. This is a really in-depth report that covers a number of factors that could play into the rise or fall of Denver's redevelopment areas. Just simply put, what is the overall outlook that we're seeing in downtown Denver right now? Yeah, I think like so many in Colorado, I recognize downtown Denver, you know, is a reflection of how vital our state is and how successful we're going to be and we're behind. When you compare to other cities, which the University of Toronto did, they compared to the 55 other cities, were 16th worst for our recovery. And so this isn't about blame for me. This is really about recognizing we can do so much better. And I think there's a number of things we probably have to do and we have to do it together to get there. What are some of those things, Kelly? Yeah, so some of it is certainly safety. People need to feel safe and downtown needs to be safe. And one of the comparisons we did was look at Cherry Creek North, primarily because it's the same city, same policies, same police force. And Cherry Creek North is an example of economic area that's thriving compared to downtown, which isn't. And so we're recommending, listen, we got to do the same things we do in Cherry Creek North as a community and as police officers and address the public safety fears people have for downtown. And of course, more of us have to come back into the office and I think this is where the public sector and private sector have to really work together to say we're going to do this so that we help revitalize downtown. Increasing residential would be another one, Marty. Areas that have higher residential really have better recovery. It's almost like you're building the neighborhood and so we should be supporting those organizations that are trying to build more residential downtown and ensure that they get it done quickly. Things like that. Kelly, a number of those things when it comes to safety, but more importantly, when it comes to the affordable housing piece of it is something that's going to be on our ballot come November 5th. Does it look like there's any measures that are being taken right now by city leaders in order to put forth a more revitalized downtown area? Yeah, I mean, I don't think directly on the ballot there is, you know, anything specifically, although frankly, the Denver Health Initiative that's looking at how do you make sure Denver Health continues to be able to provide health care to so many people in our region could be a big factor, I think, affecting this and critical. But I also think, you know, Denver has some tough policies. They're working, so I'm not saying they're the sole problem, but when you're trying to recover, you know, some of the mandates around energized Denver, this is, you know, trying to address our carbon footprint. I'm not criticizing the goal there, but in recovery, even more challenging as people are trying to figure out how to get somebody in the building, let alone the massive investment required to change that building so it has, you know, less of a carbon footprint. And minimum wage, which is working in Cherry Creek, is tougher for a downtown that's trying to recover. So I think those might be some policies the city couldn't look at to see, can we provide relief to help people make those investments downtown when we meet it at this critical moment? Kelly, when I look at one data point, and I don't know if it was 40,000, but you talk about the lack of workers in the city and the fact that there's a lot of open real estate that has not recovered since the pandemic, and now that there's a new shift in work, people working more from home, how hard is it going to be to compel those office holders, those businesses to get their workers downtown because we're in a new work model. And then conversely, was the number 40,000 that if those workers aren't going to return 40,000 new people have to traverse the city, do business down there as just basic consumers or live down there? Am I, am I portraying that right? Yeah, I have, like you, we have so much data in this report. I have to double check the specific number, but you're right, this is the huge challenge we face. The first thing I'd say is, I don't think historically we really relied on those workers to make our downtown vibrant. I think today we have to recognize the world is changing. It has changed for all 55 of those cities that were studied by Toronto, even when you look at cities along the front range, more and more people, of course, are all working from home and working remotely. And so this is an opportunity to say, how do we both increase the number of people coming back into the office? And by doing it together, I think there's some things we could probably do. And listen, it's just not about vacancy. This is also about creating the culture at work and team support and innovation companies are losing out on those things, even government is losing out on kind of the benefits of that. But this is also about how do you increase weekend traffic and after hours traffic? And when you look at our recovery in that, we're 11th lowest for a weekend traffic in the nation, even though our recovery there has been better than our return to work office vacancy recovery. So I think there is stuff for us to learn from other cities around the nation who are figuring this out. Frankly, if Denver could just hit the average of what front range cities have done in terms of recovery in their cities, they would have like $646 million additional taxable dollars that could impact their own revenue. So there's a lot of reasons why you want to really make sure we're increasing that recovery from office to after hours. Kelly, and wrapping up with you, if you had to choose one point that could really help revitalize downtown, maybe the culture of it, when you hit on the weekend piece, we talked about the office space, however, Mayor Mike Johnson has been working hard to try to revitalize downtown. However, there's still parts of the 16th street mall that you can't even navigate because it's been under construction for so long. What is the one piece that could hopefully bring some more people downtown to help? Yeah, I really wish Gina I could tell you one answer. This is what I'm going to say, though. I think we have to not say, "Hey, everything's okay. We're recovering." I think this is an opportunity for us to say as a community, as a region, we're not recovering at the speed that others are, and we know we're capable of doing it. So let's put our heads together. It's going to take every single one of us to do some things differently to make this happen. And so I would focus on safety, back to office, dispersing some of the services. We still have a serious concentration of services downtown for the most needy residents of our region. We know when you concentrate that it's tough. I think dispersing that and working as a region to address that, those are the steps that I think we have to take. Quick follow-up, Kelly. You ran for mayor. Have you presented your findings to the current mayor? Have you shared them with business leaders about some of the things you discovered and have they been receptive to that? Are they open to this? I have met with a lot of business leaders and talked about, "What do we think it would take?" And frankly, business leaders who are still downtown who are recently left to gain their insights. And I think what everybody agrees is when we have faced really tough times in our history, the solution has been the public sector, the private sector, the nonprofit sector coming together to do this work, that's what I would suggest we're going to have to do this time as well. Find the full report at commonsenseinstituteco.org from the commonsense Institute's Urban Development Fellow, it's Kelly Bruth. There's only one feeling like knowing your banker personally, like growing up with a bank you can count on, like being sure what you've earned is safe, secure, and local. There's only one feeling like knowing you're supporting your community. You deserve more from a bank. You deserve an institution that stood strong for generations. Bank of Colorado, there's only one. Member FDIC. I don't know if you know this, but when you don't have time to read the Washington Post, you can listen to it. Almost every article has a listening option. And right now, you can become a Washington Post subscriber for just 50 cents a week. It's an incredible deal. Stay on top of what's happening by signing up at washingtonpost.com/pod. That's washingtonpost.com/p-o-d. Make someone's holiday unforgettable with a Visio 50-inch 4K Smart TV, now just $239.99 at Target. Experience stunning clarity that brings movie marathons to life like never before. With Watch3 Plus built in, enjoy free live and on-demand TV right out of the box. Plus, dream all your favorite holiday songs with the iHeart Radio app. Whether it's a gift for the family or an upgrade to your own setup, this incredible value delivers 4K brilliance without breaking your holiday budget. Get your Visio 50-inch 4K Smart TV at Target for just $239.99 today.