Pueblo – Pueblo’s downtown has what a lot of the sudden-growth Front Range communities would kill for – a sense of place, with a wealth of old brick buildings full of character and stories.
But a walk through downtown now conjures images of a ghost town.
“Downtown at night and on weekends, it’s just dead,” says Richard Warner, co-owner and chef of the Steel City Diner.
City leaders say that’s about to change. After 15 years of planning and nearly $200 million of public and private spending to develop a variety of civic and commercial projects, one leader stands in his office and announces: “It is Colorado’s next big marketplace.”
The official, Steve Arveschoug, executive director of the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk of Pueblo, is trying to lure national developers to make it happen.
So far, the city’s efforts have gained the support of the community, though not without a little grumbling over all the public spending.
Private donations bolster several of the taxpayer-funded initiatives.
The desire for a richer present harkens back to the city’s rich past. It’s been a long time since the Spanish trading post turned steel town – “The Pittsburgh of the West” – was awash in money and clout at the turn of the last century.
Back in the day, the city had big-spending tycoons, powerful ranchers, famous prostitutes, notorious card players and all the Wild West trappings anyone could ask for.
How many towns can brag they once kept an immense “Hanging Tree” in the middle of a major street? The colossal oak was big enough to string up an entire gang.
The city remained Colorado’s second largest until the early 1960s.
Now civic leaders say all the pieces are in place for revitalization in this town of about 100,000 approximately 40 minutes south of Colorado Springs.
With warmer weather than Denver, mountain views, and drives to popular ski resorts in just under two hours, Pueblo should be competitive, they say.
Downtown hosts an arts center, a convention center, a museum and affordable housing for families and seniors. A large new library sits nearby.
The city ripped up pavement covering an arm of the nearby Arkansas River and has opened spaces along its bank for development.
The steel mill is no longer the dominant force, and a mix of clerical, financial and sales jobs makes up the downtown workforce. Roughly 225 businesses employ about 6,400 workers in the greater downtown area.
“It’s just a matter of getting the word out,” says Gary Anzuini, an architect who, with his wife, Ida, a local developer, is trying to cash in on whatever comes.
The Anzuinis have turned the three-story Amherst Hotel here into 17 lofts. They figured it would take three years to sell them. It took less than 12 months.
A few of the buyers came from Pueblo, but most are out-of-towners, like Kelly and Kenny Preisser, who lived outside Colorado Springs.
The Preissers are empty nesters who want to try the growing “new urbanism” model, where communities embrace living, working and seeking entertainment in an urban setting. The couple looked at lofts in Denver’s LoDo and in Colorado Springs.
But they say that what would cost as much as $875,000 in Denver or $625,000 in the Springs cost them less than $200,000 in Pueblo.
“It’s awesome,” Kelly Preisser says, while showing off murals in the unit’s master and guest bedrooms. “The restaurants are close. The urban life. The bike paths. The convenience of a downtown.”
But many of downtown’s owners have been sitting on their properties.
The result is that several buildings remain vacant – solid brick structures slowly filling with pigeon droppings.
Riverwalk’s Arveschoug now is working with a Colorado Springs real estate broker to spark new interest.
The Pumphrey family is listing 10 properties near the Riverwalk with broker Thorne Davis, who hopes to package the private properties with the lots the Riverwalk authority wants to develop. He’s taking them to national developers focused on new urbanism in San Antonio, Dallas and elsewhere.
“I think Pueblo is a diamond in the rough,” Davis says.
Other large property owners say Arveschoug’s efforts are laudable, but they don’t expect to see the rapid growth experienced in other areas of the Front Range.
“Downtown Pueblo’s never going to be what it once was,” says Louie Carleo, a major property owner here.
But Carleo is optimistic over the recent activity.
“It’s a hidden secret that people are going to really appreciate,” he says.
And planners say the work they have done over the past 15 years has prepared them for any growth that might come.
Concerns that newcomers might diminish the quality of life – voiced so often elsewhere in Colorado – aren’t being raised here.
The opposite is more the case.
“It can be pretty boring,” says Salena Baca, while shopping for a trip to Las Vegas.
“There’s not a whole lot to do in Pueblo.”
Staff writer Chuck Plunkett can be reached at 303-820-1333 or cplunkett@denverpost.com.
