Downtown Denver Retail Activation Program

Program Origin

In 2021, the City and County of Denver engaged the Downtown Denver Partnership (“DDP”) to develop and administer a program to activate the city’s iconic 16th Street commercial corridor in response to several COVID-19 related economic impacts:

Ground floor vacancy rates on 16th Street higher than 25 percent;

Return-to-office rates lower than 50 percent; and,

Pedestrian activity rates lower than 75 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

The program launched in early 2022 as Popup Denver, providing local retail entrepreneurs with the opportunity to receive a grant of $15,000 to build out a retail activation in one of five spaces being offered by on 16th Street property owners through an agreement with DDP. The license agreement required no base rent, just utilities and common area maintenance costs (CAM), for up to one year; terminable by the landlord with 30-days notice if a lease was secured with a rent-paying tenant.

Popup Denver Round One

The first Popup Denver program round attracted international media attention and 156 applications. A cohort of five awardees was selected, representing a museum, a tea shop, a street art gallery, a Colorado-based poster store, and a dance studio.

Initial outcomes:

The first round successfully achieved its goal of activating five vacant storefronts on 16th Street. Although the initial activation period was short-term, the Museum for Black Girls is still operating at its original Popup Denver location in the Denver Pavilions.

Popup Denver 2.0

In its second round, the Popup Denver program evolved to focus on matching local retail entrepreneurs with opportunities to receive the training and experience needed to sustain a successful storefront downtown (not just on 16th Street), essentially building a pipeline of future local tenants.

Starting in early 2023 and throughout 2024, four program tracks were offered to retail entrepreneurs at progressively more experienced stages of their business journeys:

Starter: product development stage, matched with technical assistance

Maker: vendor/wholesale stage, matched with free outdoor markets

Explorer: experienced storefront operator, matched with a rent-free space

Traveler: experienced storefront operator, provided with a tenant improvement grant

The expanded program assisted 20 early-stage entrepreneurs in the Starter and Maker tracks while removing some of the barriers to locating viable tenants into empty storefronts through the Explorer and Traveler tracks.

Initial outcomes:

The Starter track helped develop the product ideas of 20 early-stage retail entrepreneurs. The Maker track vendors participated in over ten outdoor markets, with daily sales ranging from $15 to $1,000. The Explorer and Traveler tracks helped place five tenants that continue to operate in their spaces today: a vintage clothing store, a toy store, a cultural arts collective, a Kenyan design store, and a Denver street artist-based gift shop.

Program Evolution

Heading into 2024, the downtown retail activation imperative shifted from COVID-19 response to anticipating the reopening of 16th Street in 2025 after a multi-year $175MM street construction effort. Despite improved economic conditions overall downtown, 16th Street vacancies remained stubbornly high. Economic indicators showed in 2024:

Return-to-office rates downtown higher than the national average at 65 percent;

Pedestrian activity rates downtown higher than most mid-sized cities at 85 percent of pre-pandemic levels; yet,

Ground floor vacancies on 16th Street continued to exceed 25 percent.

The program partners responded by adapting the retail activation program to maintain opportunities for retail entrepreneurs while pursuing a more comprehensive strategy for tenant engagement.

The Popup Denver 2.0 philosophy of matching entrepreneurs with opportunities that align with their stage of development was formalized in a document titled “Pathways to Retail Entrepreneurship,” which is used by DDP staff members to help direct interested businesses to appropriate resources and opportunities.

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The program partners continue to dedicate funding to host steps along the pathway not naturally offered by the commercial real estate market, namely lower risk micro-retail opportunities like free vendor space at market events and low cost 50-100 square-foot mobile vending locations on 16th Street. Other steps, like the coop model or retail collective, are supported by the program partners by working with local non-profits to facilitate their creation.

From Program to Strategy

As the program shifted away from an urgent COVID-19 response, a public perception survey in 2024 showed that smaller downtowns throughout the region had built up their ability to serve customers’ everyday needs for coffee shops, brewpubs, and other gathering places outside the home that they might have frequented downtown if they were still working there full time. Downtown needed to re-establish its relevance to the broader community. The resulting approach was developed in six stages, with the input of both a retail broker task force and downtown stakeholder focus groups:

Creation of an interactive GIS-based downtown storefront inventory

Data collection

Identification of downtown submarkets

Creation of Why Downtown Denver website

Development of downtown’s brand pillars to inform a place-based tenanting strategy

Engagement of a Retail Advocate to implement the strategy

Starting with inventorying all of downtown’s storefronts and other data collection, the program partners developed a firm grasp on key challenges and opportunities for transforming downtown’s groundfloor experience.

Dividing downtown into six different submarkets and making these public on a website allowed the program partners to communicate to tenant prospects how their concept aligns with the desired character of a submarket and how that character will be reinforced through public investment and the attraction of similar businesses.

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Narrowing in on 16th Street, the program partners worked with a local consultant to establish “foundational pillars” to inform the tenanting strategy for each submarket, specifically vacancies along the 16th Street corridor.

The four pillars were:

Historic – I.M. Pei. Bridging the indigenous to the global. Internationally renowned architect I.M. Pei designed the 16th Street Mall in the late 1970s, blending traditional Colorado elements like the patterns and geometry of a snakeskin and woven blanket with those of his Modernist aesthetic.

Familiar – The Colorado Trail. Serving up a sense of discovery. A visit to 16th Street should feel like you are launching from a basecamp to enjoy eye-catching vistas and new experiences as you proceed toward a summit.

Aspirational – The Silk Road. A confluence of culture and innovation. 16th Street is where Denver’s neighborhoods meet, as represented by the thought leadership of its entrepreneurs and the vibrancy of its goods and services.

Muse – Humans of New York. Our people are the story. Downtown’s greatest asset is that it is a place where all feel a genuine sense of belonging. Each visitor brings their own unique experience to what combines to embody the experienced character of the city.

To bring all of these elements to fruition, the program partners hired a full-time contractor known as a Retail Advocate, employing the firm that pioneered this national approach as a consultant.

The Retail Advocate serves as a matchmaker between tenant prospects and retail brokers to expedite the process of filling spaces. Through this position, the program partners have built a prospect pipeline of over 300 businesses that are in various stages of engagement that have been identified specifically for their potential to reinforce the tenanting strategy foundational pillars and submarket characteristics.

Although these types of programs take years to fully develop, the deliberate and strategic approach of the Downtown Denver Retail Activation Program hopes to serve as a national model for transforming how communities see retail. Shifting to retail curation as a place-making tool has the potential to positively change cities, one storefront at a time.