The remnants of a tiny working-class town west of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal have caught the eye of developer Dana Crawford.
She and environmental lawyer J. Kemper Will have been hired by Commerce City to design a master plan for the property known as Derby. Their mission is to incorporate the land into Commerce City’s grand plan to reinvigorate itself with a new soccer stadium, town center, high school, open space and park area. Derby would provide a residential component.
“It’s all about the people – it’s their town,” Crawford said of the design process. “Most of them are beginning to realize Derby can really be quite special.”
Former City Manager Perry VanDeventer acknowledged, “There’s nothing particularly attractive about (Derby). It’s not a large trade area. The buildings need to be fixed up, and the streets and parks need to be improved.”
It hasn’t always been that way. Derby was once a thriving commercial area, a 12-block district bounded by Colorado 2, Oneida Street and East 72nd Avenue.
“It’s a funny little triangle in a weird location,” Crawford said.
Like many small towns in the West, it got its start when a railroad depot opened to serve the area’s agricultural economy. The town grew drastically during World War II when the Rocky Mountain Arsenal was built to the east, but Derby resisted annexation by Commerce City.
In the 1960s, Derby made national news as the epicenter of a series of small and puzzling earthquakes. It was later determined that the quakes were triggered by wastewater being pumped down a 2-mile- deep well at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. Once the dumping stopped, so did the quakes.
With Commerce City’s population nearly doubling over the past six years to 40,023 residents, and Kroenke Sports’ much-anticipated Prairie Gateway development ready to open, the time for redevelopment seemed right.
This summer, Liborio Markets opened its first Colorado store at 6040 E. 64th Ave., just south of Derby, to cater to Commerce City’s rapidly growing Hispanic population. And Kaiser Permanente has given Commerce City a $250,000 Thriving Communities Project grant to improve walkability, particularly in Derby.
Transportation remains a key economic driver for the former railroad town because it’s strategically located near Denver International Airport and C-470.
Derby also could become a destination for visitors to Prairie Gateway, either before or after events. The $170 million sports complex, slated to open in April, is expected to attract 1.5 million visitors annually.
The biggest hurdle to Derby’s commercial renewal is the number of different owners. Of about 130 properties in the area, 64 are commercial. More than 40 percent of the owners live outside Commerce City or out of state.
“With absentee ownership, it’s hard to get people excited about revitalizing the area,” VanDeventer said.
In addition to hiring Crawford and Will to design a master plan, the city is demonstrating its financial commitment to the area by establishing a capital-improvement budget for parks and work on East 72nd Avenue. The budget for 2007 probably would be between $250,000 and $400,000.
The city has also created a $500,000 economic-incentive community fund targeted at Derby. The fund provides low-interest loans for improving buildings’ exteriors, economic incentives to draw businesses into Derby and incentives to existing businesses that want to expand. The city also can use the fund to purchase properties and turn them over to private developers.
The city also plans to extend its Urban Renewal Authority to include Derby and form a Community Development Corp. or downtown-merchants association to help guide the redevelopment in the area.
“It won’t change overnight,” VanDeventer said. “It will take a good 10 years to complete, but we’re trying to take short-term steps.”
Staff writer Margaret Jackson can be reached at 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com.
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