Reclaiming Colfax: storied street leads area redevelopment.

• Author: Titus, Stephen
• Position: Who Owns Colorado

IT WAS ONCE DENVER' S MAIN TRAFFIC ARTERY. IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE AUTOMOBILE, COLFAX AVENUE WAS LINED with hotels, restaurants and nightclubs, and it represented a glittering path to Colorado's biggest city and the state Capitol.

But interstate highways changed all that.

They bypassed Colfax Avenue and turned East Colfax into a stepchild of other commercial thoroughfares, which in turn served to beat down the neighborhoods surrounding the grand old street.

Now all that is changing again.

Backed by support from neighborhood groups to city officials and, most importantly, property owners and developers, Colfax Avenue through Denver and into old downtown Aurora is on the cusp of a full-scale recovery that protagonists say could rival the Golden Triangle and the Platte Valley.

"It's exactly where Colfax is headed," says David Walstrom, executive director of the Colfax Business Improvement District. "We're just benefiting from the influx of people coming back into city centers. Census figures show we've had 4,000 to 5,000 people move into the Colfax corridor of a much higher income."

In Denver, neighborhood groups like the Colfax Business Improvement District and Colfax on the Hill have laid the groundwork for improvements in the form of a united business leadership, crime reduction and guidance on landing financial help from the Mayor's Office of Economic Development. This, in turn, has attracted developers such as Don Bailey, who restored seven historic buildings along Colfax, and Bob Aronowitz, who is building the corridor's first new residential development in decades.

Walstrom says that so far, $1.6 million from the Mayor's office has leveraged $34 million in new construction or revitalization projects in his neighborhood, and yet the biggest redevelopment project is still on the horizon: Mercy Hospital, where one developer is planning hundreds of new condos and apartments.

Denver isn't alone in its push to bootstrap the thoroughfare.

Aurora has stepped up with some major civic improvements including an arts center, expanded library and municipal services building.

"We hope to attract artists and galleries, performing artists and theaters to other buildings in this area," says Jeff Seifried, manager for urban renewal at the City of Aurora. 'The arts center is the biggest single part of that project."

Still, Brad Buchanan, a partner with Buchanan Yonushewski Group, a Denver-based planning, building and architectural firm, says some important fundamental changes in zoning and planned land use along Colfax Avenue are needed before really big changes can occur.

Buchanan and his company specialize in...