Denver emergency management officials published a notice about the flyover earlier this week to let residents know the event may be “highly visible from parts of Denver, noticeable by sounds, more noticeable than a typical aircraft event, (and) brief, but surprising if you aren’t aware it’s planned.”

“There is no emergency. This is a planned memorial event,” city officials said in the alert. “The flyover is intended to honor and remember the lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001.”

The flyover was set to start at 8:15 a.m., when a United Boeing 777 would leave Denver International Airport and be joined by a 120th Fighter Squadron from Buckley Space Force Base before flying over United flight training center in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood.

United officials said the company had planned the flyover, “a meaningful gesture to honor the memory of those lost within the pilot community, but will suspend those plans due to concerns in the community and instead carry on with the other events of the day.”

The company did not elaborate on those concerns and a United spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Colorado National Guard officials did not respond to a request for comment about the 120th Fighter Squadron’s participation. Military officials , including F-16s, to respond to the attacks the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

City leaders decided to notify Denverites about the flyover after United Airlines informed Denver officials about the plan, said Jon Ewing, spokesperson for Mayor Mike Johnston’s office.

“We understood it as a means of honoring the victims of 9/11, first responders, pilots and the aviation community, but we also understood there could be significant concerns or surprise from the public,” Ewing said.

The community response to the planned flyover was mixed, with some who thought it was a good idea to honor victims while others said it would be concerning, Ewing said. Ultimately, the decision to cancel was United’s, he added.

“Whether you think this was a good idea or a bad idea, I don’t think you can deny that OEM got the word out,” he said.

United’s memorial service commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks is not open to the public, airline officials said.

United, American Airlines and other airport employees will pause for a moment of silence at DIA at 9:03 a.m., which is when hit the south tower of the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. American Airlines Flight 11 had crashed into the north tower 17 minutes earlier, and Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m.

The airline on Friday is unveiling a monument at the Denver flight training center made from steel recovered from the World Trade Center to honor crew from Flight 175 and , which terrorists had planned to use to attack Washington, D.C., until passengers and crew overpowered them and crashed the plane in a field in Pennsylvania instead.

“We are going to make sure this city serves you back and gives you a home where you can breathe deep and not worry about how you pay the rent next month. And that is what we will do in the next term,” Johnston said to a crowd of dozens of supporters gathered at Town Hall Collective on Santa Fe Drive.

His campaign launch comes amid recent poll results showing his favor has declined steadily among Denver voters over the past three years. In the Colorado Polling Institute survey conducted last month, 50% of voters polled said they view the first-term mayor unfavorably. That’s up from the 38% who said the same in 2024.

According to those results, most voters have said consistently over the years that Johnston is moving the city in the right direction but that he still needs to do more. After his speech, Johnston told a Post reporter he somewhat agreed with that sentiment from voters.

“No one is more unhappy with the rate of progress than me,” Johnston said. “Like I’m not sitting back eating bonbons like this is mission accomplished. I feel a sense of urgency, a sense of frustration and a sense of hunger to do far more, faster.”

He added that he’s encouraged by the results showing people believe the city is headed in the right direction.

In his 15-minute speech, he highlighted his successes as mayor, including his handling of the migrant crisis, a decrease in street homelessness, a historic drop in homicides last year and renewed foot traffic in downtown.

Johnston, who testified before a congressional committee about his handling of the migrant crisis, also pointed to his resistance to the “federal administration,” in a nod to President Donald Trump.

“When it comes to protecting our values and protecting our people, Denver will never back down from a fight,” he said.

He went on to build on promises he made during his State of the City speech in July, including the buildout of Park Hill Park and a vow to bring universal childcare to Denver within five years.

Johnston has not yet laid out a plan for how the city — which has struggled financially in recent years amid stagnating sales tax revenue — will pay for the new childcare system. Those budget constraints led Johnston to oversee a round of layoffs among city employees in 2025.

Johnston’s campaign will strive to qualify for the matching grants provided , which requires a candidate to lower their contribution limits to tamp down on the influence of high-dollar donations. He will face nine other candidates in the April election.

Alterra Mountain Company is moving its headquarters to a city-owned building (formerly owned by The Denver Post����ap parent company) that has struggled to rent its office space.

The 16th Street rebuild is complete, and free buses are running seamlessly again from Civic Center to Union Station.

The University of Colorado Denver bought prime real estate needed to help fill vacant commercial space on the mall.

And the Downtown Denver Development Authority purchased the struggling Denver Pavilions.

None of these projects are happening by accident. The City of Denver, led by Mayor Mike Johnston’s vision to anchor each block of downtown with an attraction, is engaging in a concerted effort to attract investors.

In total, tax revenue flowing into the Downtown Denver Development Authority (DDDA) . Voters approved a plan to allow the authority to retain tax increment financing in 2024, and now those investments are taking shape.

The area from Union Station to Civic Center Park — often called the Central Business District or midtown — has failed to recover from the COVID work-from-home exodus that devastated our skyscrapers and the businesses that depend on weekday workers.

Desperate times require drastic measures, and this city’s beating heart cannot be allowed to fail. It is through that lens that we now applaud a level of public investment and corporate incentives that we would otherwise be uncomfortable with.

But we urge caution. The DDDA must remember that it is using a finite resource — taxpayer money. Being good stewards of that money is not only essential to the success of their mission, but taxpayers are watching and keeping tabs. Future voters will take note of how these deals play out.

Just last month, an experimental theater closed its doors without ever putting on a show, taking with it a $400,000 taxpayer-funded loan from the DDDA that will likely never be repaid.

The list of positive advances, however, is longer than the list of setbacks.

Alterra Mountain Company announced plans on Thursday to move its headquarters from its existing space in the hip RiNo neighborhood to the old Denver Post building, where the central business district meets Civic Center Park.

The deal – brokered with about $11 million in city and state incentives and loans – only makes sense under the condition that Alterra was considering moving its headquarters to Utah and the money from the DDDA and the state helped inspire the company to stay. We don’t like this arms race of corporate handouts, but we understand why the city must play it at this juncture of history.

The ski company will be an anchor for the southern end of the newly revitalized 16th Street, which, at least for now, has a continuous free shuttle running from the Civic Center transit hub northwest to Union Station. Alterra, which operates the IKON ski pass, and plans to move into the building at 101 W. Colfax Ave. in about a year.

Alterra’s chairman said during an interview Wednesday with The Denver Post that part of what sealed the deal was the vision of the state’s second-largest ski company becoming a part of the city’s civic fabric. We are excited to see how this vision plays out — a sledding hill in Civic Center Park, snowmaking on the now empty gravel pit near the transit hub, or some other urban nod to our mountain sports.

One medium-sized company that only requires employees in office a few times a week moving its headquarters two miles to a new building, isn’t going to fix everything overnight. Downtown is plagued by vacant commercial real estate, skyscrapers selling for pennies on the dollar and a general lack of foot traffic for businesses. There is still open drug use happening on the streets and close to the city’s homeless shelters, large groups gather during the days.

But the Alterra deal comes on the heels of another big announcement. Just as Rock Bottom Brewery announced it was closing its flagship location on 16th Street, the University of Colorado Denver announced it was buying the entire city block that the restaurant called home, including the 25-story tower on Independence Plaza.

The Denver Downtown Development Authority kicked in $4.5 million to help CU Denver buy the property for a total of $28 million. The DDDA is going to launch a small business startup lab in the building, focusing on helping local entrepreneurs build their businesses.

To get a feel for how dire things had become in the area, Independence Plaza last sold for $144 million in 2007.

We are glad that the DDDA is keeping the mall afloat until customers and tenants return, but we are skeptical about plans to pour millions more into the outdoor mall to reconfigure it and add condominiums on surface parking lots behind the mall.

Denver still has a long way to go to get back to the pre-COVID baseline, but with a half-billion dollars, a workable plan of attack and good stewardship of taxpayer money, this city will survive these downtimes.

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, operator of the Ikon Pass, has signed a 12-year lease for 65,000 square feet of space in the high-profile corner building at 101 W. Colfax Ave.

The agreement, made public Thursday, ends weeks of speculation about whether the ski giant would leave Colorado and where it might relocate within Denver if it stayed.

The company plans to spend the next year renovating the space with help of $11 million in state and city incentives, which include a mix of loans, grants and tax credits.

“Ultimately, after considering multiple options in and out of the state and the city, we decided that the Denver Post building specifically was where we wanted to be for the future of Alterra,” said Eric Resnick, chairman of Alterra and CEO of KSL Capital Partners, the private ski company’s owner.

Resnick said he didn’t fully appreciate the intensity of the efforts to revive Upper Downtown, and that KSL Capital wants to be part of those.

Seeing construction equipment at work in Civic Center Park, visible from the balconies of the Denver Post building, helped seal the deal.

A refreshed park is scheduled to reopen about the same time that Alterra moves into its new headquarters.

“This is not us hoping for that to happen in the future. It is seeing that reality coming to life and wanting to be part of it,” he said.

Alterra, which employs up to 25,000 workers at peak winter capacity, expects to eventually employ 400 at its new headquarters, up from 275 at its current space at Zeppelin Station in the RiNo neighborhood.

As the manager of the Denver-owned Winter Park Resort, Alterra, and before it Intrawest, has long had a close working relationship with the city.

That relationship will gain a new dimension as landlord-tenant, pending Denver City Council approval of the lease agreement at its next meeting on Sept. 14.

“We really wanted to have an anchor tenant that would help define the identity of Upper Downtown, and we really want to build that identity around this partner,” said Denver Mayor Mike Johnston.

What Alterra brings is an outdoor industry-focused magnet to Upper Downtown, he said. For a part of Denver that has seen more businesses flee than arrive since the pandemic, it represents a huge win.

The city’s larger vision, supported by the state, is to create a hub where other outdoor recreation businesses, from makers of snow gear to service providers, can set up a base camp and interact with each other.

“We approved $1 million in grants to recruit individual companies to the outdoor recreation hub that are part of this ecosystem,” said Gov. Jared Polis. “Alterra is very much the core anchor of that.”

Alterra won’t manage the hub, but city and state officials hope its presence will attract vendors and other outdoor recreation companies to the building and surrounding area.

Roughly half of the Denver Post building remains vacant, which represents about 150,000 square feet of available space.

After Alterra leases its share, another 85,000 square feet might be available for other outdoor recreation businesses, depending on the city’s own office space needs.

In 2020, the city thought it would need the building for new courtrooms and district attorney offices. In early 2024, it bought the building for $88.5 million, overcoming opposition from some members of City Council.

In June, Denver, in a $13.5 million settlement, took over the master lease from the owner of The Denver Post, which had defaulted on monthly lease payments of $650,000 in August.

Controlling the master lease opened a path for Denver to strike the current deal with Alterra.

Johnston said the demand for more judicial space didn’t pan out as projected. Plans to build new courts, which would have been an expensive undertaking in a city facing budget shortfalls, are off the table.

Plus, if more office space is ever needed, Upper Downtown has plenty of it available.

Of Denver’s 102 largest office towers, the median year of construction is 1980. Built in 2006, the Denver Post building is one of the newest available in that part of Downtown.

And it has something rare in Denver, something that might appeal to outdoor enthusiasts: Balconies that allow tenants to soak up the sunshine and fresh air.

Johnston described the Alterra headquarters and outdoor recreation hub as the eastern capstone on a string of projects that include the repurposing of the Independence Plaza as an education hub and the purchase and eventual revitalization of the Denver Pavilions, a large outdoor retail complex along 16th Street.

“As we’ve talked through each of those neighborhoods throughout 16th Street, this has really been the last one that was the most important for us to get right,” Johnston said.

And the benefits go beyond a single building. Alterra helped make skiing possible on Ruby Hill in southwest Denver; he sees the company and other outdoor recreation tenants turning Civic Center into a hub of wintertime activities.

A retention effort

During the summer, state and local economic development officials scrambled to put together an incentive package robust enough to keep Alterra from moving to Utah, the state’s chief rival in outdoor recreation.

Utah was the first state to create an Office of Outdoor Recreation in 2013, but Colorado was close behind in 2015 with its Outdoor Recreation Industry Office.

In 2017, Denver, with state help, lured the largest snow sports trade show away from Salt Lake City, only to lose it again in 2022.

But losing Alterra would have been a huge black eye for a state that prides itself on being a global hub for the ski industry.

Alterra is North America’s second-largest ski resort operator with 18 destination resorts available under the Ikon Pass, including Arapahoe Basin and the Steamboat Ski Resort.

Colorado is also home to Broomfield-based Vail Resorts, the world’s largest ski company with more than 40 resorts offered via the Epic Pass.

Yet, Alterra’s relocation incentives raise concerns about public interventions in the private market.

Apart from Cherry Creek and Douglas County, most of the region’s office market has a long way to go to recover pre-pandemic vacancy rates.

Upper Downtown may have gained a signature tenant, but Zeppelin Station and the RiNo neighborhood lost one.

“From a public-private sector standpoint, it is a very gray area,” said Bart Allen, a director at Benchmark Commercial Solutions in Denver.

Further complicating matters, Denver will benefit financially to the degree it can fill up a building it owns. It also has financial tools available that struggling private building owners lack in the current environment.

Resnick said the required improvements will take about a year to complete. The company will exercise its option to terminate its lease at Zeppelin Station, up for renewal in 2029, early.

Johnston emphasized that the DDA incentives were conditioned on Alterra moving into a building in Upper Downtown, not into a building the city owned.

The company researched four locations in the area, and it wasn’t a given that 101 W. Colfax would win out in the end.

The city also tried to structure a deal comparable to what a private landlord would have offered, but its financial limitations required going with a different structure.

Normally, landlords fund tenant improvements up front and recover the investment over time via a higher lease rate. But the city didn’t have the money to go that route.

“We didn’t have the capacity to write Alterra a check, so we agreed on a sort of loan forgiveness or a rent‑forgiveness structure to be able to cover some of those tenant improvements,” Johnston said.

A portion of the improvements will be funded through a $7 million loan at 2% interest that the Downtown Denver Development Authority agreed to provide Alterra in July.

That money will become available for other Downtown projects as it is paid back. But Alterra will spend out of pocket for some of the improvements. The city is making up for that by offering a lower lease rate.

Developer Asher Luzzatto, who picked up four distressed office towers at a steep discount and has been approved for a DDDA loan to help convert two of them, would have liked to have landed Alterra as a tenant.

But he is glad the company is coming to Upper Downtown and sees its decision as a rising tide that will lift all boats.

“We need the market to trust that Denver is open for business,” he said. “You can’t do this for every company, but you can do it for some companies that are really reflective of Denver‘s culture and community.”

Alterra fits the bill, he said.

But just beneath its gentle waves is a murky, sometimes smelly truth.

The northwest Denver lake is slowly filling in with stormwater sludge. The surprisingly shallow water is often quite warm, making it a difficult environment for fish to survive and an easy place for dangerous algae blooms to thrive. If the accumulating muck isn’t addressed soon, the lake is at risk of becoming fully stagnant and bereft of life.

On Wednesday, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston stood alongside members of the City Council and advocates for the lake’s future to announce a plan to invest tens of millions of dollars to prevent that from happening.

“A lake that used to be 12 feet deep is in some places only 4 feet deep. It affects the lake’s health. It affects algae blooms. It affects our most beloved events,” Johnston said from the lake’s shore. “We think there’s nothing more important for the long-term health of this neighborhood than to support the long-term health of this lake.”

To raise more money for the cleanup effort, Johnston’s administration will ask the Denver Urban Renewal Authority to add the lake to a nearby urban renewal district south of the park. That would allow it to benefit from money raised through an already-approved tax incentive in the area.

If the DURA board and the City Council give their OK, the city could be reimbursed for up to $40 million in spending on the lake. That would mean significant headway for the project, which has been estimated to cost at least $130 million overall.

Denver officials also plan to use $5 million that voters approved as part of the 2025 Vibrant Denver bond package and $5 million from the city’s Wastewater Management enterprise fund, bringing the total investment to $50 million.

Challenge of a shallow lake

The 177-acre lake, which plays host to the annual Colorado Dragon Boat Festival, is only 3 feet deep on average. The decreasing depth has forced the popular festival, which was held last weekend, to reschedule in years past when the lake’s condition posed safety and health concerns.

Swaths of neighborhoods in Denver, Edgewater, Lakewood and Wheat Ridge drain into the lake, bringing sand, sediment and street crud. Over time, that has built up and begun filling in the bottom of the lake.

The cleanup project will include dredging sediment out of the bottom of the lake and disposing of it. Crews will also work on ways to prevent more sediment from building up in the lake.

Kurt Weaver, the executive director of , asked the community to keep advocating for the project throughout the entire construction process to ensure it’s completed.

“To be able to have an opportunity to write a new future for the lake is massive for us, the community around it and everyone who spends time here at the lake,” he said.

Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval, who represents the district that includes Sloan’s Lake, spoke in support of the initiative during the news conference. She said a cleanup has been included in city plans since at least 2002.

“This is a realization of what happens when a community refuses to stop advocating,” she said.

Councilwoman Jamie Torres, whose west Denver district is just south of Sloan’s Lake, spoke about the significance of the park for the surrounding community.

“(This) is a gem for everyone on this side of the highway,” she said of Interstate 25. “We don’t have many parks of this size.”

Next steps

In 2013, the Denver Urban Renewal Authority approved , which is the area between North Perry and Stuart streets and West Colfax and 17th avenues.

The financing tool, referred to as “TIF,” allows developers to be reimbursed for elements of projects when they agree to build in a blighted area that would otherwise be too costly to develop. The money comes from the growth in taxes tied to property as its value rises from redevelopment.

In the 32-acre urban renewal area, TIF has helped build projects including the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, The Raleigh at Sloan’s Lake apartment complex and Vida at Sloan’s, a Denver Housing Authority building for seniors and people with disabilities. The Sloan’s Lake restoration would be the next project the city takes on using the benefits of the urban renewal district.

“Our ability to think creatively in a time where sales tax dollars are not increasing — we’re struggling with a budget economically … is incredibly innovative,” Torres said.

DURA’s board is set to vote on the proposal during its meeting later this month. If it’s approved, the council will consider it next. Then, the city will work with the Army Corps of Engineers on the project design, which is expected to take several months.

Construction is estimated to begin in 2027. Design and construction are expected to last about two and a half years, and a city spokeswoman said the goal is to tackle as much of the overall lake improvement plan as possible.

Parks and Recreation executive director Jolon Clark said he hoped to be able to keep as much of the park open as possible during the process. While the lake itself wouldn’t need to be drained, some parts of it may need to be divided from the rest to complete work there.

The ultimate goal after the project will be for visitors to be able to safely paddleboard and boat on the lake, he added, but not necessarily to swim — which has a much higher water quality standard.

But in a seemingly contradictory trend that has continued from last year, a wide plurality of voters still view the city as headed in the right direction. Compared to other figures in city politics, Johnston’s favorability rating outpaced those of his lesser-known opponents in next year’s election — but fell short of congressional candidate Melat Kiros, who had a net-positive rating among voters.

The Colorado Polling Institute’s surveys have found that Johnston’s favorability has steadily fallen since 2024, when 48% said they have a favorable opinion of him and 38% said they viewed him in a negative light. In 2025, 46% saw him favorably and 46% unfavorably. In , 39% of city voters viewed him favorably.

Most voters have consistently said over the years that Johnston, who was elected in 2023, is moving the city in the right direction but that he still needs to do more, according to the results.

“It’s these voters who, early in his term, were saying: ‘I’m seeing some progress. That’s good. I think he needs to do more.’ And as his term has worn on, those voters have become more and more dissatisfied,” said Kevin Ingham, a pollster who is the Democratic half of CPI’s bipartisan research team. “I think we’re just getting to a point in his term where even if people can see something’s moving in the right direction, they don’t feel like the things have moved fast enough or that they have quite lived up to the promises that he made.”

The survey of 400 likely voters in the November election was conducted Aug. 11-15. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

In the 2025 survey, Ingham said most people who reported negative associations with Johnston had specific reasons. This year, nearly half of those surveyed just made general comments about him simply not doing a good job.

About a quarter of those who did approve of his performance cited his work on homelessness as the reason why. His efforts on homelessness had mixed results in the poll overall. When asked about that issue specifically, the share of people saying he has made “significant progress” doubled between 2024 and 2026, from 8% to 16%. However, that’s still lower than the 18% who said this year that Johnston had made homelessness worse.

Homelessness is still seen as voters’ top issue in Denver, followed by affordable housing and crime.

In a statement responding to the poll results, Johnston spokesman Jon Ewing said, “Denverites agree: the city is better today than it was before Mayor Johnston took office. From historic reductions in homelessness and crime to transformative investments in affordable housing and downtown recovery, Denver residents see the progress and believe the city is moving in the right direction, even as they expect us to keep delivering.”

Lori Weigel, the group’s Republican pollster, said it’s difficult for the group to say whether the results might be predictive of the 2027 mayoral election, when Johnston will run for a second term.

“Elections are about choices,” she said. “The focus is not going to be (only) on the mayor — there’s going to be an opponent, there’s going to be a contrast there.”

Other candidates and issues

As Johnston’s approval decreases, slightly more of Denverites surveyed said they viewed socialism favorably.

In CPI’s 2025 poll, 52% of voters said they had a positive view of socialism. This year it was 55%. The share of respondents who said they have a “very favorable” view of socialism rose from 20% to 25% during that time. About the same share of people reported having a positive view of capitalism — about 47% of respondents — in 2025 and 2026.

“There’s some pretty stark divisions of opinion towards socialism and capitalism by age,” Ingham said. “Younger voters are pretty down on capitalism.”

Voters appeared to be generally dissatisfied with the status quo more than specifically unhappy with capitalism, he said. Most people who mentioned a favorable view of socialism pointed to universal healthcare, a fairer economy and “taxing the rich.”

That’s in line with an electorate that recently chose Kiros, a democratic socialist, as the Democratic nominee for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District. Kiros, who made national headlines when she defeated 15-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in June, also saw a higher favorability rating than DeGette in the recent poll.

Nearly 45% of voters said they viewed her favorably compared to 35% who said the same of DeGette, according to the results. About 30% said they had a negative view of Kiros and nearly 50% said they view DeGette unfavorably.

The pollsters also asked for input about how voters view two of Johnston’s opponents in his upcoming bid for reelection: Lisa Calderón and City Councilwoman Shontel Lewis.

Lewis, whom the Denver chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America just endorsed, had less name recognition and favorability than Calderón, who’s run twice before. About 65% of respondents said they had never heard of Lewis, while 47% said they had never heard of Calderón. Only 15% said they had a favorable view of Lewis and 19% said they had an unfavorable view, with the rest having no opinion. Calderón saw 27% favorability, compared to 25% unfavorability.

Slightly more respondents than last year said they viewed the City Council unfavorably, with 44% reporting negative associations. The Denver Public School Board continues to have a steady low favorability, with only 25% of voters viewing the board and its members in a positive light, according to the results.

Denverites reported that their top three issues for the city are homelessness, affordable housing and crime.

The organization’s 2,000 members voted to support Lewis after an internal process that included a candidate forum, the group’s leaders said. The group declined to say who else sought its members’ endorsement.

“Shontel Lewis has spent her career advancing socialist policies to help working people,” said Katie Blakey, one of two Denver DSA co-chairs, in a news release. “With the city in a budget crisis and survival becoming more precarious for everyday Denverites, we need a mayor with the vision, experience, and tenacity to make meaningful change happen.”

Lewis filed to run for mayor last month, which means she won’t defend her council position in 2027. She instead will take on Johnston, whom voters elected in 2023, and repeat progressive candidate Lisa Calderón, along with several other candidates in the April election.

Denver DSA also endorsed Lewis in her successful 2023 campaign to represent the council’s northeast 8th District.

“I am proudly running again as a democratic socialist, and having the support of Denver’s DSA behind another one of my races means the world to me,” Lewis said in the release.

“I was asked to run for mayor by union organizers, my neighbors who go to work every day and still struggle, tired folks close to losing their hope,” she added. “We can run a campaign of joy, one centering what our city and her residents deserve. We will bring lasting and real change to Denver.”

The backing of the Denver DSA could give a meaningful boost to Lewis’ campaign in the wake of the group’s recent popularity, both locally and nationally, in Democratic primary elections.

In June, DSA-backed candidate Melat Kiros defeated longtime U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in the primary to represent Colorado’s 1st Congressional District, which is almost entirely made up of Denver residents. She’s now the favorite in the fall election. Kiros joined a group of several other who ousted establishment-backed candidates.

Despite expressions of earlier interest in endorsing someone to replace former Councilwoman Sarah Parady as an at-large councilmember in this fall’s special election, no candidate received enough votes from the Denver DSA members to receive the chapter’s support, chapter co-chair Susie Ramsey said.

Parady, whom the Denver DSA backed in her 2023 election, resigned for health reasons in August.

Mosher stepped down on Aug. 14 as two of his signature assignments, turning a sinking downtown around and helping convert Burnham Yard into the new home of the Denver Broncos, were in full swing.

From the outside, Mosher might look like a captain who abandoned ship in the heat of battle, or for sports fans, a football coach who walked out at halftime during a grueling game.

But he argues that his decision reflects a confidence in both the plan the city has set in place and the people who will execute it. And with his 76th birthday coming up in October, he was ready to step aside.

“Somebody said, ‘You have got more to do.’ And I said, ‘I could be here 10 years, and there will still be more to do,’ ” Mosher joked. “The only constant thing in Downtown is change.”

As Mosher departs, he leaves behind a map of guiding principles and a handful of warnings on things to avoid.

If there is one message he wants to emphasize, Mosher said it is that Upper Downtown must become a place that more people call home, not just a Central Business District (CBD) where they come to work.

“We have to turn Upper Downtown into a mixed-use neighborhood. The days of an historic CBD office park are over. We will fail if we try to make that happen or wait for it to happen,” he said.

If downtown can add 10,000 residential units over the next 10 years, its future will be much brighter than if it clings to its past as a concentrated office hub.

Not every struggling office tower, however, can convert to residences, said Mosher, who would check requests against a list Gensler, an architectural firm, had developed three years ago of prime conversion candidates.

Complicating matters, metro Denver faces a surplus of apartments, which is pushing down rents and making the math behind conversions harder to pencil out.

Downtown would benefit greatly if the state, after years of failed attempts, finds a way to finally address construction defects litigation and restore construction insurance premiums to manageable levels, he said.

The city needs to let the market pick winners and losers, Mosher said, given that it doesn’t have enough money to rescue every building or business.

But Mosher was also willing to break that rule when the Denver Pavilions, an outdoor retail mall on 16th Street, defaulted on its debt.

The development was too important to Upper Downtown and 16th Street to leave its fate to chance, he said.

The Downtown Denver Development Authority, which is directing public investments in the Central Business District, paid $37 million to purchase the Pavilions, including $8 million for improvements, and $23 million for two adjacent parking lots.

Private investment has largely pulled out of Upper Downtown. But targeted public investments, if done right, could eventually help kickstart more private investments, Mosher said.

Mosher estimates that downtown is struggling with 7 million square feet of surplus office space above and beyond what would be expected if vacancy rates were at historic levels.

About 1 million of that surplus space is on the path to residential conversions, and other adaptive reuses will absorb some of the additional space.

Earlier this month, the University of Colorado Denver closed on its purchase of Independence Plaza, a 25-story tower with only a fifth of its 567,287 square feet of space occupied.

It picked up the building at a nearly 80% discount to its prior sales price, and plans to incorporate it into its campus while also renting out space to tenants.

Residential conversions, while necessary, will only soak up a fraction of the office space now sitting empty. Building owners will need to recruit new tenants.

For that to happen, the city and the state need to encourage more business development, Mosher said.

The DDA has committed $40 million to provide incentives to recruit businesses that will bring new employees downtown. Last month, it extended a $7 million loan to help Alterra Mountain Co. relocate its headquarters from RiNo to Upper Downtown.

Downtown office rents have remained stubbornly high despite the area’s elevated vacancy rates. That reflects owners who, in hindsight, overpaid and their lenders who are unwilling to budge on loan covenants.

As more distressed sales occur, that could pave the way for office rents to drop, which in turn could allow more cost-sensitive businesses, like startups, to find their way to the Central Business District.

Building demolitions may be necessary at some point, but they should only take place if an alternative use is planned, Mosher said. That definition excludes parking lots or otherwise empty spaces.

One of the greatest risks to Upper Downtown looms ahead like a giant whirlpool: the ongoing shift in Denver’s center of gravity toward the Central Platte Valley.

Kroenke Sports and Entertainment’s River Mile project, set to eventually occupy the current Elitch Garden’s site, is slated to create 8,000 housing units across three neighborhoods and host some of the city’s tallest towers.

Upper downtown has a limited amount of time to reinvent itself before newer developments leave it permanently stranded and starved of capital, Mosher warns.

If the mark of a good leader is their ability to chart a course, the mark of a great leader is their ability to ensure a ship can sail without them.

Mosher has done exactly that, said Doug Tisdale, chairman of the DDA and a former member of the RTD board.

“The system has now been put in place. We have a structure that he helped to shape and form, and that structure has been effective and impactful. He created that for us,” Tisdale said.

A steady hand in a difficult moment

Mosher has helped downtown navigate past downturns, going back to the aftermath of the oil bust in the 1990s, when he was in charge of the Downtown Denver Partnership.

As a senior managing director at Trammel Crow, one of the country’s largest real estate developers, he was instrumental in negotiating the master development agreement that brought together private and public parties to reshape Union Station.

The Denver Union Station Development Authority, which raised $300 million in public funds to finance redevelopment efforts, was critical in that transformation, which happened after the Great Recession.

The authority was so successful in generating additional tax revenues that it paid its bonds off 14 years ahead of schedule and set the stage for further private redevelopment, including RTD’s Market Street Station site.

When faced with an even bigger challenge this decade, city leaders returned to the playbook of a public investment authority and public-private partnerships.

In November 2024, Denver voters approved the Downtown Denver Development Authority covering more than 1,000 acres of the city’s urban core. And they granted it $570 million in tax increment financing.

Mosher, a Denver native, was the person Johnston wanted to oversee that effort.

Although Mosher declined Johnston’s request to become a city employee and to stay through his term, he did agree to lead the effort for a year.

He would get the process off the ground, set priorities, and help vet funding requests headed to the DDA.

Around Christmas time, Mosher agreed to stay another quarter, and then somehow found himself staying into the second quarter.

But as the year wore on, he realized if he waited too long, he risked resigning during Johnston’s upcoming re-election campaign — something he didn’t want to do.

Mosher said much of the money that Denver voters approved to revive downtown has been committed, and that the speedy deployment was intentional.

“We are at an absolutely critical juncture. This is not something that could wait five years. Catalytic investments were needed immediately,” said Kourtny Garrett, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership.

Mosher estimates that the DDA has another $20 million to $50 million available to award over the next 12 to 18 months. With most of the money earmarked, the focus is shifting from deployment to execution.

When it comes to getting approved projects across the finish line, Mosher said Jen Welborn, who is Denver’s Deputy Chief Projects Officer, is well-equipped for the task given her 30 years of experience with the city.

She will be supported by Johnston’s Chief of Staff, Jenn Ridder, in taking over Mosher’s duties.

A fast deployment

The Downtown Development Authority lists .

But another $170 million needs to be set aside to cover interest payments and the reserves that bond investors require, Mosher said.

Also, the $570 million that City Council and voters approved was a ceiling, not a guaranteed spending pot. What investors will lend in the future is tied to how quickly downtown property tax revenues rebound.

Successful early projects that boost property values will generate additional funds in the future. As they are repaid, DDA loans can provide additional funds for other projects.

But in pushing funds out quickly, the DDA risks some misses. One of the most notable has been a $400,000 tenant improvement loan provided to the Denver Immersive Repertory Theater.

DIRT’s founders pledged to use the money to refurbish 1431 15th St., a former REI space. .

Given the current situation downtown, some of the loans are high-risk.

The DDA has committed $114.5 million to four office-to-residential conversions, including the historic Symes, University and Petroleum buildings, as well as the renovation of the Barth Hotel.

More than half of that total, and the DDA’s biggest assistance package so far, involves a $63 million low-interest-rate loan for High Fidelity Plaza.

Last year, Los Angeles developer Asher Luzzatto picked up two office towers at 621 and 623 17th St. at a 97% discount. Once valued at $100 million, he was able to purchase them for $3.2 million.

Luzzatto plans to invest $315 million to convert 1 million square feet of distressed office space into a mixed-use residential development with more than 700 apartments and a host of amenities, including an on-site daycare, a children’s museum, and new ground-floor retail space.

The DDA loan, however, will only kick in after Luzzatto has lined up other financing sources. And while the authority loan might represent the last money in, that’s because it is holding the door open so other lenders can walk through.

“Without it, High Fidelity Plaza would not have moved forward,” Luzzatto said of the DDA loan. “We don’t just need to get equity onboard; we need to get the debt markets onboard. Senior lenders like to see (the development authority’s) involvement.”

In a sign of just how distressed commercial real estate has become in Upper Downtown, Luzzatto picked up another pair of towers at 1625 and 1675 17th St., known as The Energy Center, at a 97% discount from their prior purchase price.

He plans to convert one of the towers into 360 apartments, while keeping the other as office space. He has applied for DDA assistance on that project as well.

“On balance, he has prioritized the city’s needs over our desires, but he has oriented (the development authority’s) financing in a way that encourages private developments like ours,” Luzzatto said of Mosher.

And for its part, the DDA is counting on developers like Luzzatto to chart a path for future conversion that can be funded without public support.

“If the (the authority) can demonstrate that the conversion of these office buildings to residential dwelling units does work and that it can be successful and provide a return on investment, then private developers will come along,” Tisdale said.

The work involves everything from hammering out architectural and engineering innovation required to efficiently convert older buildings into apartments to developing a market for the new units and attracting tenants.

Luzzatto said Denver may eventually need to put more money on the table, but believes the payoff will be worth the effort.

“Revitalizing one of the most important downtowns in the U.S. is worthy of whatever investment is required … provided the private markets take the first, largest and most time-sensitive risks,” he said.

Mosher said the DDA represents community capital investing in itself, in a way that hopefully spurs local entrepreneurial investments.

Public confidence can help restore private sector willingness.

“Once those things start being successful and hopefully help us turn the corner, institutional capital will return,” he predicts.

One memory that stands out for Garrett was when Mosher addressed the State of Downtown breakfast the Downtown Denver Partnership hosted last year.

In something only Mosher could pull off, he called on the crowd to “stop whining” about the woes downtown faced and to strap up their boots and get to work fixing them.

“He brought the perfect balance of leadership, inspiration, and motivation to the community,” Garrett said.

“I had not heard about that,” said Danna Berger, an employee of Altamira Foods.

“Were we supposed to be notified by the city?” asked Urja Paudel, owner of Holly Market.

“I have enough to worry about,” said Rhonda Banks, head chef and co-owner of The Blazing Chicken Shack II.

Those were all responses that Brian Loma, an advocate with , one of the environmental organizations that pushed for the new regulations, heard while going door-to-door in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood last week to let business owners and property managers know about the upcoming requirements.

“Nobody knows, nobody is prepared,” Loma told a Denver Post reporter between stops. “I don’t know if people just aren’t taking it seriously or if it����ap because I’m not the city.”

Denver’s , which passed with about 71% of the vote in 2022, requires apartments, restaurants, commercial buildings and permitted events to pay for and provide recycling and composting services. Construction and demolition projects are also required to separate and recycle all recyclable material.

The goal of the ordinance is to reduce methane emissions from Denver’s landfills by decreasing the amount of organic materials that end up there. Methane is one of the main forces driving global warming, according to the .

Denver, which has a by 100% by 2040, already provides composting and recycling pickup for single-family homes and residential buildings with up to seven units.

About 10,000 buildings in Denver will fall under the new requirements when they begin Sept. 1. More than half of those are residential buildings, according to the city. An estimated 2,500 to 3,000 of those buildings are restaurants.

An education-first approach

Denver’s Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency Office is coordinating the . Officials there said they are aware that many business owners don’t yet know about the new regulations, which require them to buy composting and recycling bins and arrange for a hauler to pick them up.

“We are doing a lot of things and all these different channels, and we know there will be gaps… and people will not necessarily know that this is happening,” said Tay Dunklee, the manager of zero waste and circular economy with the climate office, during a meeting with the City Council earlier this month.

City officials have used newsletters, social media and events to begin notifying businesses. In the coming weeks, they plan to send out letters and emails. The climate office from 9 to 11 a.m. Sept. 25 for residents and businesses interested in learning more about the Universal Recycling and Composting Ordinance.

In the next few weeks, the office will also make an online platform available for businesses to log the ways they plan to comply. Businesses will also be able to apply for exemptions from the rules for issues like space constraints, a lack of available haulers and economic hardship.

Businesses that don’t comply immediately won’t be fined, said Kelsie DeFrancia, the circular economy senior administrator with the city’s climate office.

“We have been talking about an education-first approach, which means we are trying to get the information out there,” she said. “Fines are not going to be our first response… we’re really just looking for people to be making progress towards it.”

The climate office hasn’t had much time to prepare, with the council approving final details of the ordinance last September and the administration finalizing rules and regulations in late June, DeFrancia said. Another hitch: The department is uncertain how it will pay for the program’s implementation in the coming years.

In December, the City Council agreed to allow the climate office to use revenue from the 10-cent disposable bag fee to help implement the initiative, but that fund is likely to diminish over time as more and more Denverites bring reusable bags to stores.

Businesses and apartment buildings that continuously refuse to come into compliance with the rules could eventually be cited between $150 and $999. The city’s Licensing and Consumer Protection Department will also enforce the rules by requiring residential properties and restaurants to submit a “waste diversion plan” as part of their license renewal applications.

After hearing a presentation from the climate office on their progress, Councilwoman Flor Alvidrez said she was concerned that the city doesn’t seem ready for the upcoming deadline.

“I think nothing is going to happen,” she said of the Sept. 1 deadline. “Which is not what the intention (of the ordinance) was.”

Alvidrez said in an interview that she believes city officials should have been working to notify the thousands of affected businesses much earlier.

“If it does end up going really poorly and there is no enforcement at all, (I) would definitely consider taking more action,” she said.

Attempts to create more exemptions

In 2023, Mayor Mike Johnston’s office convened a task force to make recommendations on how to implement the ordinance. Local and state governments typically make tweaks to citizen ballot initiatives once they’re approved to ensure they’re pragmatic or enforceable.

After that group disbanded, the mayor’s office proposed multiple changes, including possible exemptions for small businesses, to balance the climate-friendly goals of the ordinance with the financial struggles of local restaurants.

Under his office’s recommended guidelines, restaurants that bring in less than $2 million in revenue and have 25 or fewer employees would have been totally exempt from the requirements. That would have been about 16% of Denver’s restaurants. Small construction projects would have also been exempt.

The City Council rejected most of those suggestions and ultimately passed a final version of the requirements last September, which established this year’s Sept. 1 start date.

‘All I see is dollars and cents’

During Loma’s door-knock conversations, he said many of the local business owners and property managers have been interested in learning more about how they can comply with the requirements. Some, however, are frustrated when they learn of the upcoming rules.

“So now you want me to buy a compost?” said Banks, of The Blazing Chicken Shack II. “All I see is dollars and cents. I don’t want to be forced to bring something else that����ap going to cost me money that I could use for something else in my business.”

Restaurants will be required to provide recycling in customer-facing areas and to divide up composting and recycling in their kitchens.

Banks said she’s also concerned about the new rules attracting pests near her business.

“I don’t want to be part of a mess,” she said.

Other restaurants have expressed similar concerns, according to a letter the Colorado Restaurant Association sent to the City Council.

“(The) ordinance may force Denver restaurants to make difficult decisions, such as delaying equipment repairs, postponing hiring or advancement for their staff, or reconsidering lease renewals,” according to the letter.

Their members estimate that the ordinance will cost restaurants between $200 and $450 per month.

The city will also offer some support to food service providers, including a $3,600 grant to pay for one year of composting services for some dine-in restaurants. Restaurants can also apply for a grant to help them replace one-time wares — like drink glasses, utensils and plates — with reusable ones. Fifteen restaurants will receive up to $1,000 for that purpose.

Composting for renters

Renters and residents of large multi-family condo buildings will be one of the groups most impacted by the change, as their landlords will be required to offer composting and recycling for the first time.

The opposed the 2022 ballot measure, known as , arguing at the time that 80% of the city’s multifamily rental properties already provided recycling services.

Drew Hamrick, the senior vice president of government affairs, said in an emailed statement Thursday that “every new requirement comes with costs.”

“Our residents deserve better information than they’ve received about the actual use of collected compost, and it����ap benefits to assess whether the cost of separate collection and the resulting added cost of compost collection is a reasonable trade off,” he said.

Michael Marquez, assistant property manager of the Holly 38 Apartments, said Loma’s visit was the first time he had heard about the ordinance. Loma explained that the property managers not only need to find compost and recycling haulers, but also develop plans to educate their residents on how to properly separate their trash, recycling and composting.

Loma said he hears every week from renters and residents of condo buildings who are excited to be able to start composting.

The city’s climate office is working on a form to allow tenants to report their building if it doesn’t have recycling and composting available by Sept. 1. Denverites can already report noncompliance at food-generating businesses to the

Loma said that while the changes could increase expenses for residential properties and food businesses, there is no “free solution” to addressing climate change. He hopes the changes will ultimately save businesses money.

“Industries are part of the solution,” he said. “Not part of the problem.”

A at the intersection of 19th and California streets posted Tuesday on Reddit generated hundreds of comments that followed the normal journey of internet discourse, from lighthearted jabs to questions about the state of literacy and what the sign said about Mayor Mike Johnston’s leadership.

Johnston joked about the error in a , sharing a photo of the sign captioned “Colorado not Califorina” and thanking the person who spotted the error so the city could get it fixed quickly.

“We’ll leave spell check on next time,” Johnston wrote.

Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure spokesperson Cyndi Karvaski said in an email to The Denver Post that the sign was taken down Tuesday and a replacement sign will be installed Wednesday.

The initial sign cost $321.75, and Denver will not be charged for the removal, replacement or reinstallation of the sign because of the error, she added.