Downtown may be down and out, but it is far from being dead

Re: “Cherry Creek is thriving while other commercial districts are struggling,” April 8 business story

I have shopped and lived in downtown — BCC and ACC [ before and after the Cherry Creek shopping area].

The reopening of Cherry Creek eviscerated the downtown retail clothing and housewares market and replaced it with the generic “high- end” mall experience.

The pandemic made the experience both in downtown and the mall worse.

A lot of us urban Denver dwellers have chosen online shopping rather than having to return to the Cherry Creek zoo.

We reject the image of our neighborhood being awash in crime and homelessness. The homeless were here when we displaced them with our upscale condominiums. We just keep displacing them.

In the meantime, we can safely walk to the grocery stores, hardware store, dentist, dry cleaner, theaters, sports venues, restaurants, and art museums — and never get in the car.

The city is slowly encouraging unique retail venues to recreate the vitality of a BCC Downtown and bring a less generic Cherry Creek North- like vibe downtown.

Also, the light rail has allowed us to visit other neighborhood malls easily. Downtown is far from being dead and we happily have alternatives to Cherry Creek when we want them.

As for shopping in “The Creek,” it would be more attractive if we still had the bus service that linked downtown with the mall. In the late ’ 60s, when our family came to Denver to shop, we would visit both downtown and the Cherry Creek Mall. It wasn’t either- or. It shouldn’t be today, either. — A. Lynn Buschhoff, Denver