Big, dense, thriving but not very diverse
If you’ve looked east from Sloan’s Lake Park and played a game of count the cranes, you’ve seen it. If you’ve taken the MallRide from Civic Center Station down to Blake Street for a Rockies game, you’ve felt it.
But the eye-popping numbers in a new report put a fine point on it: Downtown Denver is bigger, denser and more economically alive than it has ever been, and the growth shows no sign of abating.
One thing the area is not, however, is diverse.
Here are some facts: There are 133,478 people now working downtown, an all-time high. Twenty-three thousand people live in the six-neighborhood downtown area, three times as many as called it home in 2000. More than $1.35 billion in new development was completed in 2017 and the first part of 2018, and an additional $2.26 billion is in the works. Those pipeline projects are expected to bring 4,525 more residential units to Ballpark, LoDo, Central Platte Valley, Auraria, Golden Triangle and Central Business District neighborhoods.
Those numbers are just part of the data encapsulated in State of Downtown Denver 2018 report, released Wednesday by the Downtown Denver Partnership.
“Downtown is really the heart of the community and the heart of the local economy. It’s important for us to understand our overall health,” Randy Thelen, the partnership’s vice president of economic development, said this week. “This year, we are pleased to be able to report that downtown is performing exceptionally well.”
The economic indicators — retail vacancy, hotel occupancy, etc. — are overwhelmingly positive. But the report paints a clear picture that not everyone living in Denver is enjoying its prosperity equally. The downtown population is overwhelmingly white, single and well-paid.
The report shows that the median age of a downtown Denver resident is 34, and 81 percent of them live alone. Just 4 percent live with kids.
About 76 percent of down-
Knock one city off the Amazon competition list. The city of Arlington, Texas, says it’s “no longer moving forward” to land Amazon’s second headquarters. But that doesn’t make Denver’s chances any better.
According to Arlington officials, the city was just one part of the proposal from the Dallas area. Other areas in Dallas still are being considered for the $5 billion HQ2 project that could bring 50,000 jobs to the chosen region, according to an Associated Press report.
And Denver, one of the 20 finalists named by Amazon in January, is still on the list, said Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. vice president Sam Bailey, who is handling the state’s bid for the conglomerate.
“We are in communication with the company and based on our communications, we’re still in full consideration for HQ2,” Bailey said Wednesday. “We have not received any information that we’re out of contention of the project.”
Arlington learned it was ruled out after being invited to give an in-person pitch to Amazon, the city said.
It had offered incentives estimated at $921 million, including a 10-year property tax abatement and a grant for the hiring of Arlington residents.
The city proposed the 200-plusacre Globe Life Park, the soon-tobe-former home of the Texas Rangers baseball team, as the potential site.
The team will move into a new stadium in 2020.
“We realize we are no longer a focus in the HQ2 selection process,” city spokeswoman Susan Schrock told the AP.
Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that Amazon was looking for a different environment.
“I think it was looking for a more downtown, urban environment, but it intrigued them very much that they could come in here and build a downtown right here,” he said.