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Downtown Colorado Springs - Impact of a 2012 Advisory Services Panel
October 8, 2020
In Colorado Springs, the city’s 120-block urban core is riding momentum that even a global pandemic has failed to disrupt. An Advisory Services panel helped make it possible.
Read the October 2020 article about this panel in UrbanLand.
Find the 2012 Advisory Services report on Colorado Springs on Knowledge Finder.
Photo By Stellar Propeller Studio
Downtown Colorado Springs
Eight years after a ULI Advisory Services panel gathered in the shadow of Pikes Peak to brainstorm about revitalizing downtown Colorado Springs, the city’s 120-block urban core is riding momentum that even a global pandemic has failed to disrupt.
The ULI panel’s assignment in 2012 centered on the revitalization of the downtown. Recognizing that a vision must be created locally, the panel offered the following as a starting point: Downtown Colorado Springs, staying true to its pioneering spirit, will create a cohesive, vibrant, mixed-use center that embraces the region’s history, culture, and natural assets to offer economic opportunity for its citizens.
Specific panel recommendations from 2012 included:
- Establishment of an Arts and Entertainment District
- Reimagining America the Beautiful Park as a new Olympic Park with a new iconic bridge and wall of Olympians of all Americans who participated in the modern Olympics since 1896.
- Creating new mixed use and mixed income housing units in the core of downtown
- Ensuring an appropriate mix of retail, late-night entertainment, dining, cultural attractions and business development
- Establishing new retail and commercial activities
- Partnership strategies to collaborate with the US Olympic Committee, University of Colorado-Colorado Springs and Colorado College
- Launching new tactics and strategies for addressing downtown management and programing
Among other signs of progress, developers have added nearly 600 residential units downtown since 2016, and some 1,260 more are planned or in development. The 8,000-seat Weidner Field minor league soccer stadium, in addition to the 3,500-seat Robson Arena for Colorado College hockey and other events, is under construction, while the 104,000-square-foot (9,700 sq m) sports medicine and performance center for the Colorado Springs campus of the University of Colorado just opened. A 10-mile (16 km) pedestrian path under development will encircle downtown and connect to Pikes Peak and other parts of the city.
To be sure, those projects and others are changing the complexion of downtown. From 2013 to 2019, investment in the downtown totaled $827.4 million, and $628.5 million in additional investments have been announced since. But of all the projects completed to date, the recent opening of the $91 million U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum in the southwest corner of downtown represents an important cornerstone of the city’s urban renewal effort while bolstering its identity as “Olympic City, USA.”
An October 2020 article in UrbanLand explores the changes in downtown Colorado Springs and the impact of the Advisory Services panel further. Read the full article here.
Find the 2012 Advisory Services report on Colorado Springs on Knowledge Finder.
(Above language in part by Joe Gose)