The high-end fashion retailer with a focus on footwear is bringing its operation back to the 1400 block of Larimer Street come fall, owners Dragana and Logan Allenbaugh told BusinessDen.

The shop, which Phil Vivinetto opened in 1979, has been on the 16th Street Mall within Market Station since 2022.

“Our brand story just fits better over there,” Logan said. “Our last stint there was 14 years, so we have a great track record with the block. It����ap more of a destination.”

The Allenbaughs bought the business in November from the 70-year-old Vivinetto, who still works at Scarpaletto part-time. The couple had worked for him for the past seven years.

Vivinetto was looking to sell the store and retire, Logan Allenbaugh said.

“We have that family relationship,” Logan Allenbaugh said. “He calls us his adopted children.”

Logan Allenbaugh said that the inventory the store has become known for, with over 50 brands like Pikolinos, Magnanni and On Cloud, will largely remain the same at the new location. Shoes account for 75% of sales, with the remainder coming from leather accessories and higher-end shirts and pants.

The couple signed a seven-year lease for the 1,500-square-foot space, which is slightly bigger than the unit on the mall. Logan said it will cost around $130,000 to build out the space with new HVAC, electrical and lighting, along with product displays.

Scarpaletto moved away from its original Larimer unit, which is currently occupied by boutique Coco + Grace, because of construction on the block. But now, he said, things look “excellent” on the street.

The pair said they are excited to capture the after-dinner crowd on Larimer Square with the move and will be extending their closing from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. or later. They are also anticipating a cleaner street with faster security response times — something that����ap been a problem when calling about theft or homelessness along 16th Street, they said.

They hope employees, of which there are four, have a smoother experience coming into work. Dragana said some of them, especially Scarpaletto’s female staff, have had issues with stalking or harassment that security “hasn’t really cared to do much about.”

“We want to make sure our staff feels comfortable because a lot of times we only have one person working,” she said. “It has gotten better, but it����ap still a concern, especially when compared to Larimer.

“And then you add things like marketing, it����ap a totally different ballgame with a place like Larimer Square that draws nice restaurants and has a crowd,” Logan added. “(16th) is more of a walk past than a destination.”

Vivinetto started Scarpaletto in Boulder nearly 50 years ago. It was a menswear store across stints in the Tabor Center, a first stop in Larimer Square and a period in the Cherry Creek Shopping Center. That was until 2008, when the shop added women’s shoes and apparel.

Scarpaletto’s annual revenue has toggled between $650,000 and $1.2 million since Logan started working there in 2019. He said construction at 16th Street Mall and Larimer took a “significant” toll on sales, but he anticipates the upcoming move will help propel growth on top of the 10% they’ve seen since last year.

Since their purchase, the couple has added a business website and online inventory system.

“With 45 years of data, we know what works and doesn’t, so we have the main brands that stay the same,” said Logan, who is from Kansas City. “We truly know the business of shoes, and ultimately it����ap about bringing it up to the 21st century.”

He and Dragana, who moved to Denver from Serbia in 2011, met during their time at Metro State University more than a decade ago.

They hope to add two more stores by the end of the decade, with the next in Scottsdale, Arizona.

“We like to keep it old school because service is one of the biggest lacks in the business world today,” Logan said. “That true genuine service and having people that know what they’re talking about. That����ap the biggest difference between e-commerce and that in-person retail experience.”

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The national Asian chain will open at 1380 16th St., according to permits filed with the city.

The spot won’t be the typical sit-down, hibachi-style operation that Benihana is known for — instead the 3,000 square feet will be home to Benihana Express, the fast-casual version that serves breakfast bowls, pastries, fried rice and hibachi platters.

City documents indicate it will cost $650,000 to build out the LoDo location, which will be Benihana’s third in Colorado, joining stores in southeast Denver and Broomfield.

The newest spot will sit between Dragonfly Noodle and the recently opened Mendocino Farms on the ground floor of the 16M Building, which features office space on floors two through six and apartments on the four floors above that. Mendocino and Benihana are filling the space that formerly housed Panera Bread before it closed in 2024.

STK Steakhouse, which shares a parent company with Benihana, is also in the building on the Market street side. Parent company The ONE Group has its offices across the street at 1624 Market St., according to its website.

The ONE Group did not respond to a request for comment from BusinessDen.

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Independence Plaza, a 25-story building at 1050 17th St., is under contract to sell to the University of Colorado, the school confirmed to BusinessDen Tuesday.

“The University of Colorado Foundation is currently doing due diligence on the potential purchase of Independence Plaza,” Jack Finlaw, president and CEO of the University of Colorado Foundation, said in a written statement.

“We carefully evaluate strategic opportunities that strengthen the university’s long-term success and its ability to serve students, communities, and the state. This is one such opportunity.”

The foundation, which has made other real estate purchases to benefit the university system, didn’t address what it plans to do with the property spanning a full city block along the 16th Street Mall between Curtis and Arapahoe streets.

The 567,000-square-foot Independence Plaza, which was built in the 1970s, is being marketed for sale by CBRE. The brokerage lists the building as just 21% occupied.

The current owner is Independence Plaza Investment Group Inc. The entity acquired the property in 2007 for $144.5 million, according to public records.

Any deal now, no matter the buyer, would likely be for a small fraction of that, given the property’s vacancy and the overall state of downtown office real estate.

The CU system already has some downtown property holdings. CU Denver’s business school is at 1475 Lawrence St. One block away on 14th Street are two more school buildings, including the 14-story Lawrence Street Center, home to the chancellor and provost offices.

CU’s purchase could bring needed activity to downtown, which has struggled since the pandemic. Office vacancy sits at 39%, according to CBRE, the highest on record.

Until now, most buyers of largely empty office buildings have been opportunistic investors or developers looking to convert them into apartments. The Denver Downtown Development Authority, a city affiliate tasked with investing hundreds of millions in bond funds into the city’s urban core, has awarded $92 million in loans to office-to-residential conversions.

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Whatever political direction Democrats plan to take their party in two years at their National Convention to elect a presidential nominee, Denver offers a shining example of what a city looks like when governance goes right for many decades, led by heart and hard work.

And we don’t mean to brag, but the results have been a lot of fun. Denver boasts one of the nation’s finest cities with the perfect mix of outdoor adventure and recreation; entertainment and world-class dining; easy transit and walkable downtowns, and the business utility of a fully renovated convention center all within a mile of the city’s urban core.

A long successive line of Denver mayors — all Democrats — have helped get the city to this point. None of these men has been perfect; like all politicians, they made mistakes. But the remarkable thing is even the mistakes — the airport’s abandoned automated luggage transit system, the commuter rail’s hiccups and headaches upon opening, the 16th Street Mall’s reconstruction coinciding with COVID — have helped create something unrivaled.

When members of the Democratic National Committee land in Denver on Tuesday, their journey from the airport to downtown will tell the story of success. The story begins in 1983 with Mayor Federico Peña, the city’s first Latino mayor, having the gumption to create a stunning work of art that rises from the Eastern Plains like snow-capped mountains, welcoming more than 80 million travelers a year.

The story continues in 2014 at Union Station, where Mayor Michael Hancock, the city’s second Black mayor in less than a decade, oversaw the public-private partnerships needed to finally get fast commuter rail service from the airport to a Union Station saved from dereliction and decay.

The story ends in a safe walk from Union Station to hotels, the convention center, Ball Arena or any of our restaurants, bars and other venues — a walk that could have felt much different without Mayor Mike Johntson’s leadership in 2023.

But members of the DNC should not let Denver’s glistening new infrastructure and bustling nightlife convince them that Denver is nothing but the next urban renewal nightmare, concrete stamped into existence by private equity at the expense of the people who live here and love it.

Just a few blocks from Union Station sit Denver’s largest homeless shelters, which have remained steadfast in their mission even as the community gentrified around them. Then, farther north, there are Five Points and Elyria Swansia, nearby neighborhoods that have held fast to their historically Black, Latino and blue-collar roots in the face of housing inflation and economic pressure to change. And a few blocks farther north is the National Western Stock Show, where our hard-working agricultural families gather every year to show off the bounty of their work at a new taxpayer-funded venue.

Denver is an authentic city that has struggled alongside this nation. We bled with America during the destructive George Floyd protests, and our police force reckoned with its own legacy of police brutality and instances of violence during the protests.

Vandalism took its toll downtown, but worse were the hundreds of people who remained in the city as homeless campers, at first gathering in protest, and then staying through the COVID lockdowns.

The city elected Mayor Mike Johnston on his promise to house the homeless, clean up the encampments with compassion and handle the refugee crisis from Venezuela with a humane and fearless approach.

Much to our surprise, and despite our deep skepticism, Johnston has rescued downtown Denver from a dangerous out-of-control spiral. Denverites spent millions on housing the homeless, we backed the mayor as he helped asylum seekers obtain work permits so they could begin their new lives in Colorado, and we did it all while continuing to be a bustling economic hub. We are a city that never lets go of its true North in the grip of challenging times.

Certainly, for the members of the DNC who visit the city this week, the pitch will be about Denver’s incredible infrastructure — the airport, the light rail, the Convention Center’s new rooftop space, the reimagined 16th Street Mall and our countless unique restaurants, bars and entertainment venues.

But for us, the pitch is about a city with authenticity and heart, a city that will never waver in our beliefs and our resolve, a city that can help America find its way through this deeply trying era of politics.

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But in building years, it is a washed-up retail concept in failing health that needs radical action to survive.

Left on its current course, the Pavilions could suffer a slow death, hindering the recovery of the rest of Upper Downtown, according to a panel of experts with the Urban Land Institute who were brought in to offer a diagnosis.

“It has had its place. It has had its moment in the sun, and we believe that it is now time to move on, to close this chapter and start the next one,” Kristen Morris, president of Morris & Fellows, a mixed-use development firm based in Atlanta, told downtown leaders at a presentation earlier this month.

After gathering opinions and touring the Pavilions and the surrounding neighborhood, the ULI panel offered a plan of care more akin to amputating both legs and less like a prescription for statins and exercise.

Tinkering with the tenant mix or giving the three-story development more time to find itself won’t resolve the fundamental issue — stacked outdoor retail hidden away from the street is a concept that stopped working a long time ago, Morris said.

The move away from mall culture to online purchases, generational shifts in shopping preferences, the unexpected loss of downtown office workers — those accelerated the downward spiral, but didn’t cause it.

The development’s decline was underway before the pandemic, and it has failed to recover long after it ended.

The city, which finalized its purchase of the outdoor mall late last year, should demolish the western half of the Pavilions and a good portion of the eastern side to make room for a “culturally significant open urban space,” according to the ULI panel’s recommendations.

In their initial concept, the panel favors an active urban park, finding inspiration from places like in Manhattan and in Cincinnati.

The United Artists theaters should be preserved to provide an indoor gathering space, useful during the colder months. What’s left of the retail space should focus on community-oriented programming with small-scale, local tenants who rotate through, creating a “kaleidoscope” of experiences.

The 800-parking spaces underneath the Pavilions are a valuable, income-generating asset that will be hard to replicate and should be preserved.

Two residential towers with 1,200 units between them should go up on the two empty lots, but in different phases. Those residents are key to turning a one-time tourist retail destination into a neighborhood amenity. Their energy is required to breathe new life into the area.

If Union Station became Denver’s “living room” after its redevelopment, the ULI argues the Pavilions could become Denver’s “front porch.”

“There’s like, really, no end in sight,” Morris warned of the current trajectory. “You can leave it there, and you can continue to let it deteriorate, both economically and performance-wise, as well as the building.”

A convention hotel won’t work

The Denver Downtown Development Authority (DDA), which voters granted $570 million in future tax dollars for revitalization efforts, has made the Pavilions a focal point of its attention.

The DDA spent $37 million of its limited funds to purchase the struggling open-air mall, as well as $23 million for 1505 and 1518 Glenarm Place, two adjacent parking lots along 15th Street that had different owners.

Another $8 million was set aside for renovation costs and lease incentives, not enough to foot the bill for a major demolition and new park.

That the authority has dedicated more than a tenth of its spending capacity to buy up the two blocks and then sought a ULI advisory panel for advice highlights how important it considers the area to Upper Downtown’s revival.

But the panelists wasted no time in quashing two of the ideas floated early on. One involves freshening up the retail and restaurant mix and bringing in more local concepts. As more office workers return and more residents move in, a recovery could eventually take hold.

Another proposal suggests the two lots be used for a large-scale convention hotel that could host gatherings too small to fill up the Colorado Convention Center but too big to fit in area hotels.

Denver eventually will need another convention hotel, which could help it win over meeting planners who don’t like putting attendees in a variety of smaller properties, said Suzanne Mellen, a senior managing director with HVS, a global hospitality consulting and valuation firm headquartered in New York City.

But at best, a hotel on the two undeveloped Pavilion lots could provide about 65,000 square feet of meeting space, which is less than the 100,000 square feet meeting planners would be looking for, she said.

And convention hotels aren’t cheap to build. Construction costs run at $800,000 to $1 million per room, meaning a 1,000-room property could top $1 billion, Mellen said.

The high costs mean substantial public subsidies would be required, requiring a long and drawn-out approval and planning process. The Pavilions needs a more immediate intervention, Mellen said.

“The panel concludes that hotel use is not recommended for the vacant parcels,” she said.

Who makes the call?

Behind the facade of fun destinations like Coyote Ugly and Lucky Strike, behind the memories of family meals at Maggiano’s Little Italy or lunch gatherings at 5280 Burger Bar, hides an uncertain future, one that the panelists warn won’t be resolved by waiting around.

The ULI has guided Denver leaders at critical moments in the past, including where to locate Denver International Airport and the Colorado Convention Center, and how to integrate Coors Field into the LoDo neighborhood.

In July 2022, the for the Speer Boulevard/Cherry Creek corridor. That greenway was actually a redevelopment in the early 1900s of a bunch of shanties and businesses that were using Cherry Creek for waste dumping.

The recent recommendations are tamer and include taking steps to more closely integrate the Auraria campus and Downtown, and bringing more residential and retail onto the campus.

And while the ULI recommendations carry weight and will receive careful consideration, the advisory panel is urging a more extreme and faster course of action, which could generate pushback.

A more detailed report is expected in the next three to six months, and the final call will likely come down to Mayor Mike Johnston and his point person on redevelopment, Bill Mosher, as well as the DDA board, which must approve any spending.

If the amount crosses $500,000, then the Denver City Council gets a say. At the crossroads of those two groups is DDA board member and City Council President Amanda Sandoval.

One of the nation’s leading downtown redevelopment consultants, Brad Segal, president and a founding partner of Progressive Urban Management Associates, is also based in Denver.

He helped get the original Pavilions off the ground in the 1990s, when he headed up the Downtown Denver Partnership.

And if any group were likely to speak up if it saw value in preserving the retail development as it is, that would be Historic Denver. Spoiler alert, it isn’t opposed to tearing down a large part of the Pavilions.

The Denver Post talked to Mosher, Sandoval, Segal and Historic Denver to get their take on what the ULI recommended.

The start of a conversation

“It was well done, really thoughtful and big picture,” said Bill Mosher, Denver’s Chief Projects Officer, of the ULI plan, stopping short of endorsing it as the final word.

“I view it as the start of a conversation,” he added politely.

]Mosher has proven himself a master of turning the city’s losses into wins. He has become Denver’s patron saint of impossible development causes.

His signature victory in a long list involved turning Union Station, a neglected Amtrak stop, into “Denver’s living room” complete with an active transit hub, high-end hotel and restaurants.

His messiest save was the Asarco Smelter, a once-vital industrial site that helped make Denver prosperous in the mining days. But the land paid a heavy price. After decades of remediation, Mosher helped it find a new life as the Crossroads Commerce Park.

Mosher said he was joking with the ULI panel that reactions they could expect would range from nostalgia to good riddance, from “we celebrated our prom there, please keep it,” to “it has had its day and needs to be demolished.”

“There is something between in my view,” he said. “We need to be thoughtful.”

Although it is struggling, the Pavilions is still 60% occupied with some loyal tenants, which is more than can be said of many of the surrounding office towers. It contains 350,000 square feet of space, which would be hard and costly to replicate.

Mosher said he was surprised that the two lots along 15th Street were never developed, and that the DDA was able to put all the parcels under one umbrella. If residential towers are the way to go, he sees 800 units as a more manageable number than the 1,200 the ULI has proposed.

The calls for 2,000 new housing units in Upper Downtown, but that represents more of a starting point than a final destination.

L.A. developer Asher Luzzatto has purchased four distressed office , pennies on the dollar, and plans to convert them, with the help of DDA support, into 1,200 housing units.

Mosher may need more convincing that a hotel won’t work. He is the CEO of the Denver Convention Center Hotel Authority and the lead developer on the 1,100-room Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center, which was also considered a long-shot project at the time.

“We will look at what they say. I don’t know if it will be our roadmap,” Mosher said. “It provides some food for thought and a vision that makes us think in a larger context.”

Denver City Council President Amanda Sandoval said she appreciates the work that the ULI panel put into its recommendations, and agrees with most, but not all of them.

“I loved the idea of preserving the theater and connecting that to the Sundance Film Festival,” she said. She also “loved” the idea of adding two residential towers instead of a convention center hotel.

“I am not so sure about their recommendation of a park,” Sandoval said.

Rather than another green space, she envisions something more akin to a community gathering space surrounded by street-level retail, like a mercato or plaza that could hosts farmers markets in the summer and the Christkindlmarkt in December.

The DDA is investing heavily to revive two downtown parks, including one that is only a few blocks away from the Pavilions.

“I want to see those investments come forward,” Sandoval said.

The DDA is pouring $30 million into the redevelopment of Civic Center park, with another $7 million to overhaul the McNichols Building, which will add a garden dining area and an arts marketplace. The first phase is expected to cost $50 million.

The “, which rebuilds the stretch west of Arapahoe Street between 16th and 17th streets.

The DDA has approved $5 million in support, with $2.5 million coming from the Elevate Denver Bond Program, $1 million from Great Outdoors Colorado, and $19.5 million from Denver Parks & Recreation.

What will take the stage?

The land that now hosts the Denver Pavilions was part of a larger theater district that served as a draw for city residents looking for entertainment. Only the Paramount Theatre remains of that era.

In the push for urban renewal, the city tore down several beautiful buildings on the land, said Brad Segal, the urban consultant.

For more than two decades, the land sat fallow, hosting parks until the land was developed by Bill Denton and the Entertainment Development Group. Ken Gart and Gart Properties purchased the Pavilions in 2008.

Mosher was also active in trying to fill in the gaps along 16th Street. Segal, as director of the Downtown Denver Partnership at the time, was involved in the early stages.

Segal said a key takeaway out of the session for him was that the Denver Pavilions is an outdated retail format and most likely won’t be retail again. He agrees that a convention center hotel is a nonstarter, and he wishes the panel had gone beyond a single recommendation of an urban park.

The word carries different connotations for different people, and he envisions more of a town square, a point of comparison being the space in front of Union Station.

“When you characterize something as a park, that might have been a fumble,” he said.

Although compelling, the ULI recommendations are more important in terms of what they said not to do than what to do.

Reactions are mixed on tearing down the lion’s share of 350,000 square feet of retail space.

Sandoval, who has warm memories of time spent there with her children, questioned if a way could be found to create active gathering spaces without demolishing so much of the complex.

After three difficult years of construction along the full length of the former 16th Street Mall, she questions whether the area could survive another disruptive project.

Not communicated by anyone was a sense that the Denver Pavilions represents an architectural gem worthy of historic preservation, or that it should be preserved as a time capsule to late 1990s retailtainment.

Denver’s ordinance on historic designation requires a minimum of 30 years, more generous than most jurisdictions, which require 50 years.

That may reflect a realization that buildings are most vulnerable to demolition at that age, said Jay Homstad, senior director of preservation advocacy with Historic Denver, in an email.

Historic Denver, in an official statement, said the group was among the many stakeholders that the ULI team consulted during its weeklong study process in Denver.

“We’re supportive of the proposals, particularly the approach that retains a significant portion of the building, including the movie theater, while opening up space along 16th Street for the kind of street-facing retail that reflects how people actually use urban spaces today,” the group said in its statement.

Historic Denver also said it welcomed the addition of housing, which should “bring much-needed life to a part of downtown that has been struggling for activation.”

The development timeline for the Pavilions has been corrected. Bill Denton and the Entertainment Development Group built the Denver Pavilions, which in 2008 was acquired by Gart Properties. 

Polis announced the proclamation from the state Capitol rotunda, after the four players and other members of the Summit organization were celebrated in the state Senate. Summit is six games into its initial season in the National Women’s Soccer League, and its home debut last month was greeted by an NWSL-record 63,004 fans.

The team gave special jerseys to Polis, Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera and Sen. Marc Catlin, who officially welcomed the team in the Senate.

“I feel so honored and humbled to be standing in front of you, representing our player group,” team captain Janine Sonis, who grew up in Highlands Ranch, said during the news conference unveiling the proclamation. “All of us are so incredibly proud to wear this crest and represent this state. … I can’t wait to bring that first championship to this city and see all of you parade down 16th Street mall with us.”

The team is home to several Colorado natives. Sonis was joined at the Capitol by midfielder Meg Boade, forward Ally Brazier and goalkeeper Jordan Nytes, all fellow Coloradans.

Another Coloradan, U.S. national team captain Lindsey Heaps, will join the club in June.

“Colorado is the best place to train and compete, and we’re inspired by Summit FC,” Polis said. “It’s especially meaningful to see Colorado’s youngest soccer players look up to and cheer on some of the best athletes in the world, right here at home, for Colorado’s newest professional sports team.”

After a 3-2 loss to league-leading San Diego on Saturday, Summit’s record stands at 1-3-2 and the team sits in the middle of the NWSL table. After the news conference ended Monday, Sonis told Polis that the team was finding its footing.

“There’s a lot of time left,” she said. “We’re going to add a win this weekend.”

“Once you try it, it’ll speak for itself. We’re getting rave reviews, especially from the East Coasters,” said store owner Jamey Cutter, 56.

Cutter is franchising Denver’s first Slice House by Tony Gemignani at 555 N. Broadway, set to open later this year.

The spot will have whole pies, pastas, wings and salads for sale, though its pizza by the slice is the standout. Nine choices will be on display, six New York style, one Detroit, one Sicilian and one “grandma” style — a pan-fried thin crust pie that����ap a family recipe from Gemignani, the chef who started the brand.

There will even be a special Colorado-style pie, a hatch green chile pizza with a pineapple salsa and Cholula-soaked chicken, topped with a cilantro lime sauce. A slice of cheese pizza will run $6 to $8.

“Tony’s pretty amazing. He’s got his flagship concept, Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in North Beach, San Francisco. Great concept, well-known, full-service. That����ap where he started out,” Cutter said.

Gemignani founded the brand in 2010, and it now has locations from Tennessee to Idaho. His roots run deep in Colorado, mentoring the chefs who later started Boulder’s Audrey Jane’s Pizza Garage and Denver’s Blue Pan Pizza.

Cutter’s first interaction with Slice House came a few years ago, when he was visiting his brother in California.

“I went over for lunch and I was absolutely blown away, hadn’t tried anything like it,” he said.

In January, he opened a location in Boulder. Another franchisee has locations in Longmont and Loveland. Cutter’s contract is for seven spots in the state. Two or three will be in the Denver area.

“For this concept, I think it works better on the outskirts of downtown,” he said.

Cutter said the location, by the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Broadway with easy access to Speer Boulevard and Interstate 25, made it ideal. There’s plenty of parking for take-out, and the nearby neighborhoods will keep business going on weekends, he said.

The $750,000 build-out will be wrapped up later this year, with doors opening in the fourth quarter, he said. The franchise group consists of just him and his wife, and the two are working to secure loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration to help finance the new spots.

This isn’t Cutter’s first time franchising, though. He owns the Corner Bakery at 717 17th St. and used to also run its two 16th Street Mall locations before the pandemic shuttered them. Before coming to Denver 20 years ago, he was a regional manager at Jamba Juice, overseeing 80 locations across five states.

“I’ve been in the restaurant business since I was 15 years old,” he said. “I was born into it.”

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Re: “Committee again delays vote on scooter provider,” April 3 news story

I’m writing to express growing concern about the number of near misses I’ve had with electric scooters while walking on sidewalks in downtown Denver. Recently, after stepping off the MallRide, I was almost hit from behind by someone on a Lime scooter. Had I leaned even slightly to the right to avoid gum, trash, or oil on the ground, I likely would have ended up on the pavement.

This isn’t a one‑time issue; I’ve had similar close calls many times while walking downtown. It����ap becoming increasingly difficult to feel safe as a pedestrian on sidewalks that should be reserved for people on foot.

I’ve never seen any enforcement or even a simple warning given to scooter riders for unsafe behavior. I also understand there was once technology that could disable scooters operating on the 16th Street Mall.

With the recent introduction of a possible new bike and scooter service in Denver, we are at a unique crossroads. While these “new kids on the block” offer great mobility options, they also highlight the urgent need for better-defined safety measures and infrastructure. It����ap the perfect time to take proactive steps to improve pedestrian safety throughout the area.

Karen Young, Centennial

Sports writing as a treat

Reading reporter Bennett Durando on the Sports pages is a treat. I think we have another Sports poet now.

Dee Trasen, Denver 

Wasting no time piling on the Rockies

Re: “New year, same awful baseball for Rockies fans,” and “Rockies Horror Pitcher Show in home debut,” April 4 sports stories

The headlines on the columns by Sean Keeler and Troy Renck were ugly and out of line, referring to Opening Day at Coors Field by the Rockies. It is their first day of a very long season. Are the players entitled to be not at their best or better selves? They piled on in a continuation of last season’s ugly commentaries on our team.

What if it were their sons playing in their first high school or college game of the season? The Rockies are our team, and we should treat them with respect, the way we would our sons on opening day of any level baseball season. Embarrassing headlines!

Anne Campbell, Denver

Remove the Social Security tax cap on wealthier workers

Re: “$100,000 in Social Security benefits is too much,” April 2 commentary

The author argues that the best way to extend the solvency of the Social Security trust fund, which is expected to run out of money by 2033, is to limit the maximum benefit amount paid to individuals and couples. She argues that social security should be a “safety net” intended for people who have not been able to save additional money for retirement. Her solution to extend the life of the trust fund safety net is to reduce the maximum amount of social security income.

The better way to extend the life of the trust fund is to do exactly what the writer opposes: eliminate the cap on income subject to social security contributions. I suspect that many working people don’t even know that individuals earning more than $184,500 a year do not pay social security taxes on earnings above this amount. They pay less into Social Security as a percentage of their income.

The author rejects this solution because it would result in a “very large tax increase,” which is true. This increase would only affect those individuals who make more than $184,500 a year. High-income earners would pay more into the Social Security system based on all their earned income, just like everyone else. Rather than limit the amount of money received from Social Security, the more equitable and effective way to extend the life of the trust fund is to remove the cap on income subject to contributions.

Having this cap is just another example of how the rich get richer and the rest of us pay for their privilege.

Mark Perbix, Golden

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“The cool factor is off the charts,” Ryan Ross, director of and president of a local investigations firm, said. “The gondola system is like a ride-hailing car system in the air. You get to ride-hail your own cabin. It can seat up to six. You’d enter into your phone where you want to go.”

A public presentation by , , and manufacturers on Tuesday evening will unveil more about the envisioned “automated elevated transit network” — broader than the single-gondola concept city officials considered a few years ago. The presentation is scheduled for 6 p.m. in the auditorium at 101 W. Colfax.

New Downtown’s designs show gondola cabins moving above streets in three loops with 14 stops — one linking Denver Union Station with Civic Center, and another circling Civic Center. An eight-mile loop would link Union Station with the Burnham Yard (near the Denver Broncos’ preferred site for a future new football stadium), the Auraria higher education campus, Elitch Gardens and Coors Field.

Ross’s other proposals for reviving downtown include a 500-foot-tall Ferris wheel off Little Raven Street and an amphitheater along the 16th Street Mall.

Five years ago, gondola transit surfaced in a plan linking Denver Union Station with the Highland neighborhood west of downtown — crossing Interstate 25, train tracks, and the South Platte River. Cities elsewhere have installed gondolas for transit “where obstacles such as waterways, highways, or topography would make other alternatives less feasible,” DOTI planner Riley LaMie said. In ., city officials installed an aerial tram connecting the South Waterfront District with a university campus across diverse terrain.

For Denver, “this was proposed as a transit solution because of the highway, river, railroad, and topography changes that are all in close proximity to each other,” LaMie said. But DOTI hasn’t studied the feasibility of a downtown-wide system, potential benefits, and how gondolas would compare with other transit, he said.

The gondola cabins would move separately in the same direction along a fixed guideway, Ross said. At stations, the cabins would detach, and pulleys would lower them for passengers to get on or off. Speeds would range from 25 to 35 miles per hour, slowing at turns. They’d stop at every station or carry riders to stations they’d designate using a Den-Vair smartphone app, he said. “Commute to work. Rent a cabin for a private party. Ride alone and meditate. Ride with a group and get married in the air. Your ride. Your design.”

The 30-year-old CEO of Green Spaces, a coworking, events and retail marketplace, is closing his RiNo location at 2590 Walnut St. next week to go all-in on the 16th Street Mall.

“It just makes a lot more sense to have a business there than a Walnut Street with no foot traffic and vacancies,” he said.

Taylor said the location will shut down March 16. In a few months, it will be replaced by a new storefront on the corner of 16th and Welton streets. The young entrepreneur received a $2.7 million grant from the Denver Downtown Development Authority to fill the entire corner, formerly home to a RadioShack, Taco Bell and Jimmy John’s. He’s subleasing space at a discounted rent to five new local shops and restaurants, thanks to the DDDA funds.

At its core will be the Green Spaces Market, an 18,000-square-foot cafe and event space with several retailers inside.

“I feel like we get to see the full vision through on 16th Street, and the RiNo location was more of a proof of concept,” Taylor said.

Taylor purchased the Green Spaces brand in early 2022, back when it was solely a coworking space. He poured $600,000 into the 13,000-square-foot building and launched the retail and event space the following year. Taylor had previously been using Green Spaces as a coworking space for his clothing brand, which had a storefront down the street.

The RiNo spot has been home to seven retailers, from an art supply store to a candle shop to a tattoo parlor. Taylor said he helped six of them relocate.

The seventh, Migas Coffee, will follow him to anchor the new cafe on the mall, which will also be home to record shop City Records, art shop Fruits of Our Labor, Sushi Kuro and Matter bookstore.

The downtown location won’t make its debut with coworking, although Taylor said it could be added later.

“The retail portion of it is why I originally took over Green Spaces. … The coworking is what I inherited,” he said.

In RiNo, Taylor is paying a lump sum fee to break his lease, he said, which ran about $42,000 in monthly rent.

“When I first took over, we were one of three coworking spaces in the area, and now we’re one of 10. … It����ap very saturated,” he said.

In the time between purchasing the spot and remaking it in his image, neighboring 10 Barrel Brewing and Epic Brewing closed their doors. In 2024, nearby local eatery Park Burger closed. Last year, self-serve beer hall First Draft shuttered across the street, and wine bar Noble Riot one block away followed suit a few months later.

National retailers Arc’teryx and Patagonia flank Green Spaces on opposite corners of 26th and Walnut. To the north, Oakley and FreePeople, another pair of national chains, have recently added locations.

Most of the storefronts flanking Walnut between 26th and 27th streets are owned by Edens, a Washington, D.C.-based real estate investment firm that bought into the neighborhood in 2018.

“It really felt like a thriving ecosystem, and then somewhere along the way it started dwindling,” Taylor said.

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