16th Street’s empty shops fill up with art as efforts continue to bring business back

When Mayor Mike Johnston formally announced the 16th Street Mall would have a new name, dropping the reference to the 1980s-era shopping centers, artist Chris Beatty was several blocks away at the former Mellow Mushroom restaurant.

He was wrapping up an installation of Colorado-themed skateboards by 303 Boards in the windows.

The boards featured illustrations of Colfax Avenue, (currently undergoing its own heavy construction project), the Rocky Mountains and RTD trams.

It was the perfect setting to hang up the art pieces, said Beatty of Cultivator Advertising and Design.

The old Mellow Mushroom — which closed its only Colorado location last March — had thin window frames that made it ideal to feature each individual skateboard.

The art showcase is one of several that have popped up across 16th Street for the summer.

While downtown Denver’s main thoroughfare no longer emphasizes the “mall” in its former name, its reputation as a retail destination is still incredibly important for city leaders.

16th Street has lost many businesses following the COVID-19 pandemic, rising crime and its multi-year construction project. It’s struggled to fill its empty retail spaces back up, even as work on the street has nearly finished.

The art is a temporary solution to make use of the empty spaces waiting for a new business to move in again while the city is calling on people to come back and see 16th Street’s new look.

“We’re trying to just fill everything, make everything look festive and summery,” Beatty said.

Another window shows a lineup of cowboy hats with mountains spray painted on them in sunset hues.

One is filled with colorful umbrellas. Another display features giant drinking straws.

The Downtown Denver Partnership, the organization in charge of the city core’s Business Improvement District, began periodically tracking vacancy rates on 16th Street starting in 2021, finding nearly a third of its retail spaces were empty.

Ahead of its reopening party at the end of May, the Downtown Denver Partnership said retail vacancies were at 25%.

It’s the lowest since the organization began tracking but far above the region’s average 4% vacancy rate, according to real estate firm JLL’s first quarter retail report for Denver.

Last year, the city awarded the downtown organization nearly $2 million, using some of the city’s last remaining federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars, to help refill the shops. 

There’s still a long road ahead to getting to a healthier vacancy rate below 10%, one that shows the area is a coveted shopping destination again and also leaves some space for new businesses to continuously keep the street’s line up fresh.

Filling those spaces is like a matchmaking business.

Downtown leaders have created a pipeline to help brands find the right spot along 16th Street, or elsewhere in downtown.

The organization has about 400 retail and food and beverage businesses in the pipeline, said Sarah Wiebenson, Downtown Denver Partnership’s vice president of economic development, and is having active conversations with about 80 of them.

“It really takes about 18 months from engagement with an interested business to get to a lease,” Wiebenson said.

The Partnership hired a “retail advocate” to help businesses navigate which sub-neighborhood they would fit best in and what spaces would work for them.

One problem is that there’s a “mismatch between the sizes of spaces,” she explained.

16th Street was once a hotspot for big box retail stores but many businesses have been shrinking their footprint.

When one big chain leaves, it might take two or more small businesses to fill one space back up.

The city and DDP have set up grants and incentives to help storefronts downsize to attract smaller tenants.

“We’ve evolved away from the big box retail being the solution for retail recruitment, and we’re really looking at more of those local concepts and even national brands that just generally have a smaller footprint,” Wiebenson said.

There are several bright spots for 16th Street.

Momentum is building on businesses interested getting into downtown’s pipeline, she said.

16th Street’s construction is nearly finished and the Summer Kickoff to celebrate its reopening attracted more than 40,000 visitors over the first June weekend. The expanded Downtown Development Authority set to infuse $570 million into the city center will also help fund the Denver Retail Attraction Incentive Fund to subsidize the cost of rent for new businesses.

And the street has seen a number of new kiosks pop up, offering a range of goods and services such as automatic coffee, massages, haircuts, magazines and Japanese soft serve ice cream.

But sore spots are still there, too.

Foot traffic is still down. Downtown’s daily pedestrian numbers are at 80% from where it was before the pandemic.

Restaurant sales in Downtown Denver were flat between 2023 and 2024, according to the annual State of Downtown report. Clothing and accessory store sales were down 13% year-over-year.

As 16th Street tries to create a collection of both local and national businesses, Wiebenson said attracting bigger names can be a tougher battle to convince downtown is improving.

“National brands tend to be a little bit more conservative. They’re really looking for foot traffic counts, sales generated by the existing businesses here,” she said. “And we have a challenge there.”

One focus officials have is hosting events that bring people back to the new 16th Street, like the Outside Festival earlier in June.

“There’s so many partnerships that we can form to help keep that pedestrian activity going that will start to get the attention of those national retailers,” Wiebenson said.

Another problem is that some of the old office buildings are set to be “repositioned,” she said. And those areas may wait the longest to be filled since their ground floor spaces would require a short-term lease if there are redevelopment plans in the works.

As downtown works on its rebound, the art installations commissioned by the Downtown Denver Partnership seeks to fill as many empty shops along the street for the short-term.

It aims to make the street feel less empty and more colorful as leaders wait for their long-term strategy to unfold.

“We’re just trying to bring people back,” Beatty, the artist, said.
”It’s been too long since COVID and then the construction.”

This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content