The space, which served as home base for the cast of “Real World Denver” nearly two decades ago, debuted as , a restaurant and club specializing in DJ dance parties and bottle service. It celebrated a grand opening with a New Year’s Eve party featuring a performance by Mastamonk.

The holiday was locals’ first chance to see the massive 16,000-square-foot venue outfitted with a large center bar, dance floor, rooftop patio, and state-of-the-art audio and visual amenities. That includes a 300-square-foot LED wall ideal for watching sports or serving as a backdrop for musicians who play there.

Riot House comes to Denver by way of Scottsdale, Ariz., where the concept����ap first location is and where its owner/operator, Riot Hospitality Group, is based. The company also owns Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row, located on the same block at 1946 Market St., which opened on New Year’s Eve in 2021.

The proximity of its two nightlife destinations is no coincidence, said spokesperson Lissa Druss.

“We believe in LoDo. That����ap why we put our flagship down there with Whiskey Row,” she said. “The potential is endless and we’re doing what we can to bring strong entertainment and nightlife to LoDo.”

Riot Hospitality Group is also currently developing the historic El Chapultepec space at 1962 Market St. with partners Monfort Companies, though the company isn’t ready to announce anything about it, Druss said.

After the grand opening, the venue will be open Thursdays and Fridays from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., Saturdays from noon to 2 a.m., and Sundays from noon to 10 p.m.

Take a virtual tour: 

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The Real World House (1920 Market St.)

Then: The homebase for the seven roommates, and one that was heavily guarded by production company Bunim-Murray. “We were walking past the house the other night and some meathead told us we couldn’t stop to chat in front of it,” wrote a commenter on GetRealDenver.com while the show was filming. “I told him it was a public sidewalk and he said he’d be happy to have the police reinforce what he told me.”

Now: Brothers Bar & Grill

LoDo’s Bar and Grill (1946 Market St.)

Then: A favorite spot for the cast, since it was essentially next door to their house. “The strangest part of the entire thing was that when the cameras stopped rolling and lights went off, the conversation stopped,” wrote a commenter, who witnessed them filming on LoDo’s rooftop deck. “The cast literally just sat there staring at each other, not saying a word.”

Now: LoDo’s Bar and Grill

Club Vinyl (1082 Broadway)

Then: A DJ-driven dance club on Capitol Hill where cast member Colie Edison befriends a couple of  dudes on camera. Later, she and one of the guys (“Nick from Virginia”) duck behind a gas station at Broadway and 10th Avenue to urinate and make out. Classy.

Now: Club Vinyl

Monarck (1416 Market St.)

Then: Another frequent stop for the cast and crew on their weekend rounds, and one that played a role in Episode 4 after black cast member Stephen Nichols said a bouncer there called him the N-word.

Now: An empty LoDo storefront

J.R.’s Bar and Grill (777 E. 17th St.)

�ճ���:��This popular (and now-shuttered) gay bar attracted cast member Davis Mallory a few times but it never appeared on air. “Everybody at the bar just stood around and stared at them,” wrote a commenter after the cast and crew arrived. “One of the girls spilled her drink on the pool table because a bug flew in and she dropped it… When they were leaving one of the girls bit it on the sidewalk and everyone erupted in laughter and pointing and clapping.”

Now: Tony P’s Bar & Pizzeria

On Nov. 22, exactly a decade will have passed since of its long-running reality trainwreck “The Real World,” which chose the Mile High City as the backdrop for its 2006 incarnation.

Cast members Brooke, Tyrie, Colie, Davis, Stephen, Jenn and Alex lived, worked, partied, hooked up and fought out of a converted brick building at , which had been the home of a B-52s Billiards bar, and which has since been a succession of restaurants and retail shops (it’s currently Brothers Bar & Grill).

Production company Bunim-Murray kept a tight lid on the proceedings during summer filming, restricting access to the 21,297-square-foot house and making anyone who appeared on camera at the the cast visited sign waivers that muzzled them from talking about the show.

Naturally, The Denver Post went out of its way to track every movement of the cast and crew via the (since-shuttered) website GetRealDenver.com. As much a gossip blog as an advocate for the show to  — which at the time had a bigger cow-town complex than it does now — the site was (for a time) DenverPost.com’s most popular offering and was even featured on the cover of the .

In advance of the 10th anniversary cast reunion at the new  at 7 p.m. on Oct. 21, we’re stumbling down memory lane and revisiting the places the cast frequented, as well as catching up with cast member Davis Mallory, who went on to work in the music industry as a publicist and , and who will be in Denver for the reunion.

The Denver Post: What are your abiding memories of appearing “The Real World: Denver”?

Davis Mallory: I had only been (to Colorado) one time before, which was during high school when I came for a Young Life trip to a camp called Frontier Ranch in Buena Vista. I was really in love with the layout of downtown Denver, the proximity to the mountains, the views and scenery and the overall feel and energy of Colorado. I also fortunately had a close friend from college who lived in Denver who took the cast out our first night of filming to several night clubs, which we wound up going to for most of the show.

Q: How much freedom did you have to do what you wanted?

��:��Despite the fact that we lived right across the street from Coors Field, we were never allowed to go to a game because clearing all the logos would have been a nightmare. We were also unable to see a show at Red Rocks for clearing the licenses of the music. We joined the Denver Athletic Club — whenever we worked out alone the camera crew did not come with us, which was a nice and rare escape from 24/7 filming… one of the only moments in four months where I was not being filmed.

Q: What were your favorite spots?

A: I loved Larimer Street. There was a wine bar we often went to — it has been a long time now since the show finished, so I forget the names of all the clubs we went to — but the ones I do remember include Vinyl, The Church, Mynt, LoDos, Crimson and Tryst. We were given gift certificates to Wild Oats food store and I was a big fan of Flying Dog beer and toured the brewery — they gave me a case of my favorite beer, In Heat Wheat. We went rock climbing at Turtle Rock, hiking in Boulder, went on wilderness excursion in Leadville for Outward Bound and skiing at A-Basin.

Q: Do you feel you were portrayed fairly on the show?

A: I felt that my behavior and actions were accurately portrayed on TV — pretty much anything that I did both bad or good was shown on TV. I felt that I was given a fair edit. For instance, my fight with Tyrie (which wound up being ranked as the Biggest Fight of the first 20 Seasons of the “Real World,” and was featured in VH1’s Top 40 Reality TV Moments) showed both the escalated aspects of the fight as well as reconciliation and forgiveness in one episode. One of my biggest complaints is how little we were paid ($10,000 each to film “The Real World: Denver”). In the end less than 1 percent of what we did on the show actually made its way onto TV. The show was an accumulation of 28 episodes (30 minutes each), and these 14 total hours were accrued from four months filming.

Q: What do most people ask you about the experience?

A: “Did the show provide free alcohol?” We were never provided any free alcohol from the producers, and in fact they began to put alcohol restrictions on us if we were becoming too intoxicated. Which was in part a fault of the altitude.

Q: Do you and the cast keep in touch?

A: After Denver finished filming I took part in three “Real World/Road Rules: Challenges”: “The Inferno 3” (2007), “The Duel 2” (2009) and “Rivals: (2011). My “Real World: Denver” co-stars were on several of these shows as well: Jenn (“Inferno 3,” “Duel 2” and “Rivals”), Tyrie (“Inferno 3” and “Rivals”), Colie (“Inferno 3”) and Brooke (“Duel 2”). For the two years after Denver aired (2006-2008) I gave speeches and lectures at over 40 colleges — often paired up with my “Real World” co-stars discussing topics ranging from Alcohol Awareness to LGBT rights and issues. I saw Brooke Labarbera the most after the show — we are both from the South (I’m from Georgia, she’s from Tennessee) and we visited each other’s hometowns often. I currently live in Nashville, where Brooke also resides, and I have seen her several times.

Q: What are they all up to?

A: From what I know about everyone, Colie Edison is engaged to be married and is Vice President of Marketing at Bowlmor AMF in New York. Jenn Grijalva is a Fitness Director at P2P Transformation Center in Pleasanton, Calif. Brooke is a licensed therapist who graduated from NYU with her Masters and presently lives in Nashville. Stephen Nichols is Vice President of Diversity Engagement for National School Public Relations in Sacramento, Calif. Tyrie Brown is a coach at UFC Gym in San Francisco and just had a baby girl, named Diem Brown. Alex Smith… I actually do not know what he’s up to!

Q: How would you rate the experience overall?

A: I think The Real World was a great experience — I was 22 years old when I filmed the show. Before filming I made a list of goals I hoped to accomplish by going on the show, and one of them was to be a positive role model of a gay man on TV. Something I had not seen other than characters on “The Real World” with Chris Beckman of “The Real World: Chicago” and Karamo of “The Real World: Philadelphia” as influencers for my decision to go on the show. After the show aired I received hundreds of emails and MySpace messages by young gay men saying I inspired and encouraged them to come out of the closet, which I felt was a personal accomplishment.

The “Real World: Denver” house at 1920 Market St. is now Theorie, a new restaurant and martini bar. (The name was changed just prior to opening from The Abbey to Theorie because of a copyright conflict with a different establishment.)

The second-floor living space, once home to many a reality-TV drama scene, will open soon as a new wine store. But the pool that people saw on the TV show is missing, and the stairs have been removed. Now the entry is flanked by two long full-service bars, one on the three-season outdoor patio to the left and one inside the main bar area to the right. Inside, several dining areas offer elegant tables, cozy booths and two banquette-lined lounge areas.

The décor is certainly creative, if chaotic, mixing vintage opulence, modern simplicity and LoDo loft style with mixed results. It works brilliantly in the entry; look up as you walk through the front doors, and you’ll see a large piece of ornate iron scrollwork on the ceiling, along with a modern chandelier of red glass ribbons and a brick wall dotted with twinkling red-beaded sconces.

The patio feels like a different place altogether, with mod brushed-steel tables, a long, sleek steel bar and a casual back lounge area. The inside bar mixes things up with plush plum-colored banquettes and throw pillows, white molded-plastic chairs and bare brick walls, and the dining areas follow the vintage route again with sparkling chandeliers, dark tables and sheer curtains.

One private dining area goes all out, with a gazebolike circular space enclosed by white crystal-studded curtains, containing a round glass table and a glittering $20,000 crystal chandelier. Walk into the VIP lounge, and the décor changes again, this time with low black tables and couches, and zebra-upholstered wall cushions.

So what’s the theory behind Theorie?

“We want to bring the Larimer crowd to this area,” said co-owner Shane Alexander.

This is the first restaurant project for Alexander and his business partner Josh Hawkinson, and the two intend that the glittering décor will be outshone only by the “affluent, sophisticated” crowd they plan to attract. They are obviously proud of the remodel, dropping adjectives such as “elite,” “luxurious” and “exquisite” into their conversations and press releases.

“It’s the atmosphere that sets us apart and will bring the crowds in,” Alexander said. “We’ll focus on dining until around 10 each night, and after 10:30 we’ll go into more of a lounge. But it’s going to be chill. The music won’t be overpowering, and we’ll do late- night bottle service without having all the tables reserved.”

Chef Deryk Schnepf created a menu of contemporary American cuisine with a touch of French and Asian flair, and the cocktail menu centers on martinis and wines, with 75 specialty martinis and a wine list with 25 whites and 25 reds available by the glass along with a large selection of bottles. Swing by tonight for the soft opening party; Saturday’s VIP grand opening party is invite-only.

Drinking to fight cancer

Who knew that pickling your liver could help find a cure for cancer?

Head to Harry’s Bar at the Magnolia Hotel (818 17th St.) tonight for $2 Absolut mixed drinks during happy hour from 4 to 8 p.m. The Magnolia will donate $1 from each purchase to the Colorado Cancer Society, and the Absolut girls will be on hand to offer promotional goodies and prize drawings including a stay at the hotel.

Electronica at Cervantes’

Finish the evening tonight with an electronic music festival at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom (2637 Welton St.); “2K7” features Infected Mushroom, Randy Seidman, Friends in Stereo, Amplified Illusions, Sensory Orchestra and the Vixens, along with 17 other DJs and performers on two stages. The party starts at 5 p.m. and goes until 3 a.m. Saturday. $20/$55 VIP, 16+,

Kat Valentine writes about night life Fridays in 7Days. Reach her at kat@kingproduction.com or 303-954-1568.

Did you hear that, Denver? It was the sound of reality TV whisking its lights, cameras and action elsewhere.

MTV’s long-running show “The Real World” will air its Denver season finale at 8 p.m. Wednesday, capping 28 episodes rife with over-the-top personalities and plotlines. The show revolved around seven 20-somethings packed into a tricked-out loft in LoDo for three months last summer.

So how did Denver fare?

Well, let’s just say our reputation as prodigious drinkers – as noted in recent years by Men’s Health magazine and Forbes.com – is safe. Viewers who tuned in for a whirlwind of drunken, trashy behavior got exactly what they wanted.

Civic and business types lauded the national TV exposure, even if the show lacked substance.

“Any time something of that caliber comes to Denver, whether it’s the NBA All-Star weekend or the Democratic National Convention or ‘The Real World,’ it exposes a different side of our city,” said Paulina Szafran ski, marketing director for Lotus Entertainment LLC.

Lotus operates the upscale Market Street bar Monarck, which enjoyed more screen time than any other on “The Real World.”

In terms of ratings, though, things could have gone better for Denver. While the show still draws plenty of viewers in the advertiser-friendly 18- to 34-year-old demographic, numbers for the half-hour drama, in its 18th season, were down from last year’s Key West, Fla., version.

The Denver season has averaged 2.2 million viewers per episode, compared with Key West’s 2.6 million, according to Nielsen Media.

The poor results have had some people questioning the franchise’s future, even though MTV is already in production for another two seasons. Fan response on message boards and blogs have noted the show’s slide toward unadulterated trash. The roommates engaged in little more than alcohol-fueled promiscuity during their time here.

“It seems like that’s how they all are, but they were definitely having a lot more sex and being a lot crazier,” said Beth Shaughnessy, director of marketing for LoDo Restaurant Group.

LoDo’s Bar & Grill, down the street from “The Real World,” was the site of several scenes. Planned viewing parties there failed to draw crowds and were canceled.

“I used to live in Chicago where bars had ‘Sex and the City’ viewing parties that were huge,” Shaughnessy said. “I felt like if we were right next to the ‘Real World’ house, people would want to watch it. But we weren’t getting any response.”

Partying in LoDo

The Denver season focused on Jenn, Brooke, Colie, Tyrie, Stephen, Davis and Alex as they partied their way through bustling LoDo. A crew from Los Angeles- based Bunim/Murray Productions descended on 1920 Market St. last year, transforming the former B-52 Billiards into a TV-ready pad for the cast, none of whom hailed from our state.

Their average age of 22 ensured the focus would be on boozy nightlife and relationship drama, the show’s staples.

“We have seen an increase in filming from last year, and that’s everything from commercials to small independent films,” said Ginger White, senior economic development specialist for the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs.

She cited “The Real World,” the Denver Art Museum addition and the 2008 Democratic National Convention as examples of Denver’s mounting national profile. “What’s most significant is … (the show) employed local filmmakers and talent here,” she said.

Monarck’s Szafranski noted a bump in job applications and out-of-town party reservations at the bar.

Josh Haakinson hopes to trade on the Denver house’s notoriety when he and business partner Shane Alexander open the Abbey Restaurant and Lounge in mid-July. They purchased the 22,000- square- foot building at 1920 Market St. last year for $3.3 million and have invested $1.4 million in renovating the space.

“We want to capitalize on what MTV has already done for us, which is the publicity,” Haakinson said.

While “The Real World” may have portrayed Denver as a youthful, energetic town, the roommates and production crew rarely strayed from their home base.

“I was disappointed they stayed on Market Street the whole time,” said 26-year-old “Real World” fan Amy Board. “Obviously, they went up to the mountains, but didn’t venture out and explore our city. Then again, their job is create drama. … It was a guilty pleasure to laugh at the trashy insanity of it.”

People manufacture myriad flimsy excuses to watch “The Real World,” MTV’s longest-running reality show, now in its 18th season.

Taped in Denver last summer and now mostly through its 24-episode run, the daddy of all reality shows is an exercise in guilty-pleasure viewing. Only the barest skeleton of plot, social consciousness or growth exists in these improv soap operas. Most often, drama is bred through boozy misunderstandings that escalate into screaming matches, racist/homophobic accusations and threats of violence.

In other words, your average CU-Boulder frat party.

But many of us tune in, week after week, because we’ve become attached to the seven roommates who lived at 1920 Market St. Well, maybe “attached to” isn’t the right phrase. Perhaps, “appalled by,” as one would be by a burning elephant carcass.

Most disappointing about watching these ego-driven exhibitionists is that they fail to meet our already very low expectations. It’s cool to see our city, with all its sun-flecked boulevards, striking architecture and azure skies, cast as some Shangri-La for upper-middle class twentysomethings, but when that’s the only reason not to change the channel, we’re in trouble.

We stopped expecting insightful drama on the Las Vegas season when “The Real World” began casting nymphomaniac alcoholics over flesh-and-blood humans, a formula that has served MTV’s ratings well. It’s also sucked the blood out of a program that once reflected the working lives of young people.

What we’re left with is a parody of the real world, a simulacrum of living day-to-day with people different from you. Every aspect of the show is calculated, right down to the Colorado-themed furnishings of the cast members’ ridiculously large house (itself a surface-level parody of Colorado style, with ski lifts in the living room and a basketball court bearing the state flag).

Don’t even get me started about the way Denver’s nightlife is portrayed – an endless circle of the same four or five LoDo bars, an insult that ignores 99 percent of our city’s vibrant culture.

The exploitation of the cast is obvious. Less obvious is how the show exploits our city as a backdrop to sell products and reinforce brand identity to its mostly teenage target audience.

As in all cities “The Real World” visits these days, the locals’ reaction to the cast and crew was ambivalent, at best. But now that the show is airing, we also know it was a waste of time to think that it would somehow benefit Denver.

True, we have no one to blame but ourselves if we continue to watch. I blog about the show on , so I’ll certainly finish out the season. But it’s clear now that the joke’s on us, and it’s not very funny.

Staff writer John Wenzel can be reached at 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com.

Wildlife trophies, Aspen wood and ski resort memorabilia abound at 1920 Market St., the former LoDo home of B-52 Billiards, where seven strangers became fodder for primetime melodrama.

“The Real World: Denver” premieres at 6 p.m. Wednesday on MTV.

Not even the Colorado state flag is a sacred cow in this “house” where the roommates regularly shot hoops on a patio basketball court fashioned from plastic tiles painted like that state emblem.

Aubrey was on a mission to reclaim something in the Denver digs that he believes some of the other “Real World” residences missed during the show’s 18 seasons: a sense of place.

“Once you actually got the cameras inside the living space, you had no idea where the roommates were,” he said recently from Los Angeles. “They could have been living in a giant warehouse or in a studio anywhere.”

In some cities, MTV crews filmed cast members in residences that were decidedly regional. What’s more Seattle than living on the Pier, more Las Vegas than lounging around a hotel suite, more Parisian than overtaking a historic chateau or more New York City than squeezing into a SoHo loft?

In other locations, however, Aubrey says the mystique and character of those places stopped at the front door of “The Real World” house. “There wasn’t a real sense of place or an understanding of what they felt like while they were in that space,” said Aubrey, who worked on the San Diego “Real World” house as well as other MTV sets.

In Denver, Aubrey merged regional design influences with an urban loft look by using Rocky Mountain-inspired motifs, a Denver-based design team, and artwork and materials created by local vendors.

Such heavy reliance on local artists turned the house into a virtual showcase of Colorado talents. For instance, Todd Caudle’s graphic photo murals of snowcapped mountains and Keith Price’s steel sculptures of rock climbers helped bring the outdoors in to the LoDo house.

Mineshaft and ski lift murals painted by Ann Marie Auricchio, and the life-size jeep-turned-art forged by Poison Spyder Customs, Discount Muffler Brake and Mickey

Thompson Performance Tires & Wheels created a sense of Colorado adventurism.

Humor resonated in the confessional room with fabricated Aspen trees that seemingly grew out of the floor. Snowshoe sconces and an antler chandelier punctuated the telephone room.

Kentwood City Properties listed the 21,297-square-foot building last month for $3.3 million. The design features several high-resale hallmarks including stainless steel appliances from Frigidaire and Kitchen-
Aid, granite counters and fireplaces in the bedrooms.

And there’s more eye candy in the second-floor bathroom: four sinks, three floating mirrors and a frosted mountain scene on two separate shower stalls that barely cover nude bodies rounded out that space. The stalls themselves are pieces of art with hundreds of recycled glass and aluminum tiles in cheery red, blue, green and yellow hues.

Modern furnishings supplied largely by CB2, the cooler kid sister of Crate and Barrel, and industrial touches like original brick walls hinted at the decidedly hipper, younger side of Colorado.

“Real World” houses are known for that kind of “wow” factor. Consider the brass pole inside the former Boston firehouse, the 18-foot version of the state fair icon Big Tex that stood guard inside the Austin warehouse, or the jellyfish tank lounge inside the Las Vegas that housed that city’s cast.

In Denver, the challenge Aubrey and his crew faced meant transforming a cavernous former nightclub building into a cozy communal living spaces – in just five weeks.

Their layout is characterized by intimate seating areas and lounging spaces anchored by comfy furnishings and soft lighting. A decadent chocolate brown sectional in the living room was instantly popular with the cast mates, according to Aubrey. But no “Real World” house is complete without a hot tub and fish tank. This season’s fish bowl stands out because it was built inside a fake fireplace.

The kitchen bar, the LoveSacs and even the I-Joy massage chairs were all opportunities for the roommates to connect. In most rooms, these furnishings were pulled away from the walls for better camera access.

“It’s important to design a home first,” Aubrey said. “The (the cast members) have to live there and feel comfortable in their surroundings before they can open up to the fact that they have a camera in their face 24 hours a day.”

• Check the complete scoop on The Real World – Denver at

Staff writer Sheba R. Wheeler can be reached at 303-954-1283 or swheeler@denverpost.com.

Kentwood City Properties on Wednesday officially listed the 21,297-square- foot building at 1920 Market St. It formerly housed nightclub B-52 Billiards.

Broker Georgia Gallagher is marketing the property as either residential or commercial space and said interest has already been high.

“There is significant interest, anywhere from restaurants to office space,” she said. “The building lends itself to a lot of possibilities, and it’s a great value.”

MTV also announced Wednesday it will begin airing the reality series Nov. 22. Since 1991, MTV has filmed seven strangers as they learn to live together over several months. The experiences of the Denver cast will be broadcast in 28 episodes.

The building, assessed at $2.2 million earlier this year, was acquired by Heritage Bank in March from B-52 Real Estate LLC in lieu of foreclosure, according to city documents. The property was then sold for $2.7 million in late April to a holding company that leased it to show producer Bunim Murray.

MTV said it invested a significant amount of money in remodeling the space, which is being sold “as-is.”

The main level includes an outdoor courtyard complete with basketball hoop, a mini-pool and a hot tub. In the entryway, a Jeep Wrangler has been turned into a bar. The living, dining and kitchen spaces are centered on a large brick faux-fireplace that features a fish tank.

Upstairs, the loft-style space features a shuffleboard court, three bedrooms and one large bathroom – all without doors, as is standard practice for the reality show.

“Sometimes it felt like I was living in an Old Navy commercial,” said “Davis,” one of the seven cast members who lived in Lower Downtown while the show was being taped this summer. “Slowly but surely, it started to feel like my real home.”

The building also houses an industrial kitchen with appliances from Frigidaire and KitchenAid, rugs and furniture from Crate & Barrel’s CB2 line, an elevator and a private garage.

It does still have an active cabaret license, according to Gallagher.

“I could see something like a high-price ad agency or a restaurant going in here,” said Jim Johnston, co-executive producer for Bunim Murray. “It could become a bar again, but that would take a lot of work.”

The commercial property was temporarily rezoned residential to host the MTV show.

Jorgen Christiansen, owner of downtown’s Urban Realty, said he considers it a tough property to sell.

“I would never look at that location for clients because it’s sandwiched between all those bars,” he said. “And even for a nightclub, it’s a huge space. You’ll have to remodel it, and that is very expensive.”

Others believe that it has some cachet.

“It still has its 15 minutes of fame,” said Mary Beth Jenkins, president of the Laramie Co., a Denver retail brokerage and consulting firm. “I think another nightclub would be a good fit.”

Staff writer Julie Dunn can be reached at 303-954-1592 or at jdunn@denverpost.com.

21,297 Square feet

15 Minutes of fame

1 Jeep as a bar

$3.3 MILLION Price tag

But the television show in LoDo, now filming its 18th season, can also resemble a mosquito, buzzing, baffling and annoying … then disappearing, leaving only a small bump in its wake.

It all depends on the neighborhood – and more specifically, the cast. But as economic-impact numbers are flung around Lower Downtown like a Real Worlder’s shucked swimsuit, and as onlookers ponder the show’s lasting cultural impact – if any – history offers some lessons.

Take Season 16, when seven strangers shared an Austin, Texas, warehouse three blocks off the bustling Sixth Street entertainment district, quaffing and reeling at bars such as the Chugging Monkey and the Dizzy Rooster. Or Season 13 in Chicago, when the cast reigned over the Wicker Park District, driving rents up and ruining nightlife for discerning hipsters.

Las Vegas, host to the 14th season, was fittingly bizarre. The cast landed a 2,900-square-foot suite – nearly an entire floor – at the then-new Palms Resort Casino. Many industry experts agree that the hard-partying cast helped solidify the celeb-heavy, bad-boy reputation the Palms boasts today, five years after opening.

“The Real World” won’t necessarily transform LoDo’s Market Street (the house sits on the 1900 block) into Bourbon Street. In some cities, the popular reality show has come and gone, leaving little more than memories and empty beer bottles.

“In the end, did having that show tape in Philly for three months have any lasting effects on the neighborhood?” offered Mark Shields, who lived a block from the Philadelphia “Real World” house in the Old City neighborhood during production. “It was already an area that was on the positive side of improvement, so it’s tough to say.”

Shields was the webmaster of therealworldphilly.com, a site similar to The Post’s getrealdenver.com: It tracked the cast down, identifying them and their conquests before it aired – and before MTV was ready to release the information.

The Real World didn’t turn the neighborhood around. Once the home of warehouses and boarded-up machine shops, Old City was already on its way.

“Rents and mortgages were going sky-high everywhere in the U.S., but it didn’t help that they finished gentrifying the neighborhood,” Shields said. “There was no more room to grow and ‘The Real World’ was shooting there all at the same time.”

The hipsters and artists have moved on from Old City, he said. The “Real World” digs, housed in the old Corn Exchange bank building (now the F.U.E.L. art gallery) is a new hometown monument, a quick walk from Ben Franklin’s grave, Betsy Ross’ house and the Liberty Bell.

Talk about your American history.

The show left a larger wake when it filmed in 2001 in the northwest Chicago neighborhood of Wicker Park.

“They put a nail in the coffin of what used to be a cool neighborhood,” said Aaron Leverenz, a 37-year-old bartender at the popular Beachwood Inn, a hole in the wall offering cheap beer and “Sister Christian” on the jukebox. “It used to be a starving artist place. It used to be on the hip side. But the area is not exactly what it used to be. It’s not an artist neighborhood anymore. There’s a lot of soccer moms now.

“But it was kinda headed up in that direction anyway.”

Tony Jops, a manager at pizza joint/brewery Piece (where Chicago cast members worked for a spell), said the show didn’t start the neighborhood’s gentrification – but it certainly fast-forwarded it.

Before “The Real World,” “it was still a real cool, edgy neighborhood,” Jops said. “But now you see yuppies walking around with kids. You didn’t see that five years ago.”

Tony chain shops like Cold Stone Creamery and Urban Outfitters have moved in.

In 2002, Las Vegas was a different kind of market for the show, given that the posse’s posturing and partying took place in a tourist mecca and splashed down in a new hotel, the Gen Y-skewing Palms, rather than an established neighborhood.

“For that group of people who were fanatics of the show, going to the Palms is like going to the holy shrine,” said Thom Wise, a former Denver restaurateur and writer who is editor of Las Vegas Magazine. “It’s become a real tourist mecca. And it absolutely had an enormous effect on the Palms. They use it in their press releases, so they’re very aware of it.”

Yes they are.

“We opened in November 2001, and ‘The Real World’ suite was constructed in 2002,” said Chris Walters, public relations coordinator at the hotel. “Within a year of opening, we had a mainstream TV show being filmed out of the hotel, and it helped to confirm and cement that image of the Palms as a one-stop resort destination.

“And we hit that young, hip MTV kind of crowd. We’re very celebrity-friendly.”

“The Real World” jump-started the hotel’s reputation. “It depicted the Palms as this place where people could stay in a fabulous suite with access to fabulous nightlife and fabulous food and never have to leave,” Walters said.

“The Real World” suite still exists at the Palms as it did on the show. A night can be yours for $10,000. In direct response to demand, the hotel is creating more themed rooms as part of a $650 million renovation.

But the less obvious – yet much larger – cultural imprint left by “The Real World” is in the casino’s relationship with the entertainment industry. Many Vegas casinos have a strict no-video cameras policy that includes the media and its Hollywood counterparts. But “The Real World” and its relationship with The Palms started a sea change.

“What was interesting about ‘The Real World’ and the Palms and Las Vegas casinos in general is that we opened up the doors and let the cameras in, which isn’t something we do,” Walters said. “That’s why we have such a wonderful relationship with the media now: ‘Party @ the Palms,’ ‘Inked,’ ‘The Girls Next Door.’

“They film here a lot, and we participate in movies and TV shows, like ‘CSI’ and ‘Las Vegas’ all the time. And they’re so happy to do business with us because they don’t have to go through the red tape that they would have to deal with at the corporate casinos.”

In Austin, the show’s impact is seen more at the South By Southwest music festival than it is in everyday life.

When the show arrived in Texas in 2005, one of the cast’s jobs was making a music documentary on the festival. After that season aired, revealing to the world the gritty rock ‘n’ roll beauty of SXSW, the festival and the city enjoyed a massive March this year. Hotels sold out more quickly than usual and the festival seemed more packed than it has in the past five years.

But as Eric Zorr soaked in a sunny Wednesday afternoon earlier this week at the Halcyon Coffeehouse Bar and Lounge, located in Austin’s warehouse district only a few blocks from the old “Real World” house, life was simple and quiet.

“It all seemed pretty canned,” said Zorr, a barista at Halcyon. “I don’t know if it affected us, really, other than that we’re glad it’s done and they’re gone.”

Staff writer Scott Lieber contributed to this story.

Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.

It took 14 years and 17 seasons, but MTV’s pioneering reality television juggernaut will start filming in Lower Downtown in the coming months, the network announced Monday.

And the arrival of “The Real World: Denver” – the 18th installation in the longest-running reality TV series, which attracted nearly 100 million viewers in its last incarnation – could spell a mammoth shift for Denver’s image in the eyes of young people, who have made the show an enormous hit.

Never mind Colorado’s cameos in Travel Channel documentaries and reality TV shows. Forget about 2005’s NBA All-Star Game, which brought the crème de la crème of the sports, hip-hop and media worlds to the Mile High City for a weekend of indulgent fun.

“The Real World: Denver,” already cast for a months-long, 24-episode stint at a renovated living space inside the old B-52’s Billiards on the 1900 block of Market Street, will be the city’s bona-fide close-up.

“It’s a truly unique opportunity in that sense that one of Denver’s and Colorado’s greatest strengths is its appeal to young people – and here’s the No. 1 show for young people in all of cable TV,” said Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, who learned March 8 of the city’s selection. “The thing that’s so appealing about it is that they consciously let the city become a character in the show. Every city has its own personality and idiosyncrasies, and they come out in the show.”

MTV crews will trickle into Denver in the coming months and eventually wrap production work here before the season premieres toward the end of the year. The series, which began in 1992, has previously focused on cities such as Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, Miami and New York City.

In the wake of lackluster international outings in London and Paris, the series is focusing on smaller markets, with a 2005 season in Austin, Texas, and 2006 runs in Key West, Fla., and Denver.

“It’s awesome”

Colorado has a lot going for it. MTV will help showcase its many landmarks and vibrant entertainments.

Supporters say Denver makes sense, citing the lifestyle, youth and vibrancy.

“It’s a status thing,” said Rich Grant of the Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau. “They wouldn’t go to a city where there isn’t a lot going on.”

Plus there’s the locus of Denver’s premier entertainment district and the show’s host neighborhood: LoDo, which is preening for its 15 minutes (or 24 episodes) of fame.

“I think it’s awesome, and not only because I watch every reality TV show known to man,” said Danielle Mashuda, a manager at the Downtown Tavern, which opened last week across from what will come to be known as “The Real World” house.

Colorado is already an appealing place for MTV and its family of networks. The network’s high-definition TV music channel, MHD, broadcasts from a studio near Vail’s Eagle’s Nest summit, and it has taped big-name concerts in the surrounding area.

And CBS’s “The Amazing Race” began this year’s season at Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

As “The Real World: Denver” picks up steam, local landmarks such as Coors Field and the 16th Street Mall will become familiar to fans, who are part of the 12- to 34-year-old range that gives “The Real World” franchise such potent staying power. Imagine the cast working at REI or Colorado Outward Bound School, cruising the Tattered Cover or grabbing tacos and Everclear margaritas at Wahoo’s.

Asked if she was worried about an influx of crowds, the Downtown Tavern’s Mashuda laughed.

“Worried? Of course not. Bring them all on. We want that for our business.”

Staff writer Julie Dunn contributed to this report.

Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.