Last month, Wil Alston’s City Council aspirations ended when he was defeated in Denver’s District 8 runoff by Albus Brooks.
But on Tuesday, Mayor-elect Michael Hancock named Alston, executive director of the Five Points Business District, his communications director.
After two years of leading the nonprofit organization, Alston will leave behind his daily role as the business district embarks on the implementation phase of some of its restorative efforts.
“The organization received almost $1 million in grants with Wil at the helm,” said Alison Wadle, chairwoman of the Five Points Business District’s board of directors.
One of those grants — the Colorado Sustainable Main Streets Initiative — paid for a vision plan for the Five Points corridor. The extensive report, which was completed in January, calls for business development, historical preservation, parking and transportation, among other things.
“We’re now going into the implementation phase, and some of the organizations we’re working with early on are RTD and Urban Land Institute,” Wadle said.
She said Alston’s departure would be tough, but she is confident the organization will finish what he helped start. A national search for his replacement begins immediately.
Alston will join the organization’s board.
Established in 2009, the business district receives its funding through Denver’s Office of Economic Development.
In 2008, the Five Points neighborhood was named as a pilot district for Denver’s Neighborhood Marketplace Initiative, a citywide program that encourages the growth of public-private partnerships to strengthen business districts and their surrounding neighborhoods.
In Five Points, the work transformed into an effort to redevelop the neighborhood once known as the “Harlem of the West” for its slate of jazz clubs that drew legendary acts such as Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole. Toward the end of the 1950s, however, the neighborhood succumbed to violence and drugs, eventually losing its allure.
One restoration project in the works is of the historic Rossonian Hotel building, near the corner of Welton and Washington streets. Developer Carl Bourgeois purchased it in 2005.
“The primary purpose of redoing the building is to put a nice restaurant in it that is culturally aware of the history of Five Points,” he said.
Though Bourgeois would not say what that restaurant might be, many with inside knowledge say Busboys and Poets — part restaurant and part bookstore with three locations in the Washington, D.C., area — has been scouting the site.
“The Rossonian is the catalyst that we hope will ignite additional new developments in the neighborhood, so it’s imperative we do a great job on it,” Bourgeois said.
Alston, deputy communications director for former Gov. Bill Ritter from 2007 to 2009, said the city must continue to activate these corridors that have been dormant for decades.
“Areas like Five Points can create great revenue resources for mayors,” he said, “and you can guarantee I’ll be in the mayor’s ear about the value of Five Points.”
Kurtis Lee: 303-954-1655 or klee@denverpost.com
