As the chaos of pandemic lockdowns and racial justice protests of 2020 move further into the rearview mirror, people’s perceptions of downtown Denver have worsened rather than improved, according to a survey from the global architectural firm Gensler.
Only 55% of those surveyed who visited Denver’s central business district last fall described having a great experience, which is down from more than 70% who used the term “great” in similar surveys in 2021 and 2023, Jon Gambrill, Gensler’s Denver managing director told the annual “State of Downtown” breakfast gathering hosted by the Downtown Denver Partnership on Thursday.
“I think that safety, affordability and filling all these vacant retail (spaces) are areas that we need to improve on,” Gambrill said, adding that Denver should boost its green canopy and work to integrate some of the larger and aloof towers in the Uptown area into the streetscape.
Gensler conducts surveys in 53 cities across 20 countries and the major reasons people give for non-work visits to a downtown are to shop, dine and socialize. The third highest-ranked draw is to “hang out” or just enjoy the downtown experience. But in Denver, the third-place draw was to “visit parks,” which ranks way down on the list in other cities.
That would be comparable to visiting your neighbors because of their lush lawn and colorful flowerbeds, not because you genuinely enjoy spending time with them or sharing a meal.
Gambrill attributed the decline in “great experience” reports to a diminished sense of safety, as well as to the multiple construction projects underway in the city’s core. At the time of the survey, about four blocks of the 16th Street Mall had been delivered, but another nine were still under construction or about to be torn up. RTD upgrades on its downtown light rail lines didn’t help matters.
Three-quarters of downtown Denver visitors surveyed said their sense of personal safety had worsened last year, a common concern cited in other cities. Denver stood out in that another 25% said their sense of navigation in getting around had worsened, a problem rarely mentioned in other cities, Gambrill said.
Mayor Mike Johnston has pushed hard to clear homeless encampments from central Denver and last week announced beefed-up police patrols, including the return of officers on horses and bikes. Both violent and property crimes are falling in District 6, which includes downtown, but a random stabbing spree that killed two people on the Mall in January only reinforced a sense of danger.
“We still have 50,000 less people coming downtown per day on average, and that’s driven by the Monday through Friday (visits) coming into the office — the typical 8 to 5 workday,” said Kourtny Garrett, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership.
But traffic in other areas has come back stronger, especially on the weekends and evenings. Garrett noted that more than a million people visited the Denver Center for the Performing Arts Complex, which at 12 acres is the nation’s second-largest arts complex after New York’s Lincoln Center. Another 750,000 came to the Colorado Convention Center, pushing visits close to pre-pandemic levels.
Another 400,000 people visited Civic Center Park, drawn by large-scale gatherings such as the Cinco de Mayo Celebration and the Denver Kristkindle Market, although once big draws like the People’s Fair, which went away in 2018, and Taste of Colorado, which suspended its operations in 2024, are gone.
Downtown Denver has a 16% storefront vacancy rate, while the 16th Street Mall, which has been in the throes of a $175 million upgrade since 2022, has a storefront vacancy rate closer to 27%. Garrett said 50 new ground-floor businesses moved in during 2024 and the vacancy rate should fall once Mall construction wraps up later this year.
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