The Community Coordinating District (CCD No.1) is a unique metropolitan district (metro district) established to facilitate public improvement and development initiatives throughout the Denver metro area. They’ve recently engaged “virtual town hall” technology through Mind Mixer and are making a push through the attached Mini-Contest to raise awareness of their own website.

CCD No.1 was created to address a familiar hurdle in community development projects. The challenge, as with most collaborative efforts, is aligning multiple stakeholders to work together toward a common goal. This requires a clear and actionable strategy, the right funding resources, and positive action from everyone involved

With many of these issues especially prevalent in Northeast Downtown neighborhoods, CCD No. 1 was established with cooperation from Councilwoman Judy Montero, the Ballpark Neighborhood Association, and Urban Market Partners to help with placemaking efforts and other goals of the Northeast Downtown Neighborhoods – specifically in and around the Triangle Parks area. We’ve all seen the Triangle Parks along Broadway near shelters at Lawrence and know there’s work to be done.

It’s important to highlight that this metro or “Special District” is the first of its kind in that it has no Service Area Plan Boundaries. In fact, the District has no geographical boundaries and provides an “Opt-in” structure so that other groups or community development efforts can someday use this as a vehicle to more efficiently partner with their respective City.

For their pilot project, CCD No. 1 has chosen Eddie Maestas Park at Park Avenue and Lawrence Street, across from the Denver Rescue Mission. The conversation has since expanded and is now addressing issues and opportunities at Sonny Lawson Park and along the entire 24th Street corridor. It’s clear that the issues surrounding the Triangle Parks are just as much about the social infrastructure as they are the physical design or infrastructure. Further, what happens at Eddie Maestas affects Curtis Park and Sonny Lawson Park, so a more global, holistic approach to the programming of the neighborhood wide public realm is needed.

You can learn more about CCD No. 1 by visiting their website or find them on Facebook.

This coming Monday (21^st) at 5:30PM, CCD No. 1 will be hosting its Monthly Public Work Session Meeting at Redline at 24th and Arapahoe.  This meeting is especially important because ALL temporary design plans for Triangle Parks will be presented. The goal is to collect all public and stakeholder feedback and select a concept to advance. The CCD No. 1 Creative Working Group meets every Monday at 10AM at 450 E. 17th Ave #400. This group exists to focus on the temporary and long term vision surrounding Eddie Maestas. The Long Term Vision Group meets every Monday at 11AM at Redline. This group focuses on the entire Northeast Downtown neighborhood area and the many possibilities for revitalization. Any and all are welcome and encouraged to attend both the monthly work session next Monday and the Creative Working Group meetings!

We’ve had some great turnouts lately! Thank you to everyone for your interest and enthusiasm in this project that will transform Downtown Denver and the region.

Here’s how it works: Head on down to the LoDo side of the historic station at 17th & Wynkoop at about 9:50 AM. Whoever shows up, that will be our tour group. We’ll start promptly at 10:00 AM and conclude around 11:00 AM at the new light rail station by the Millennium Bridge. The suggested donation for the tour is $10 per person and all proceeds go to the non-profit Student Chapter of the American Planning Association at the University of Colorado Denver, but you’re welcome to attend regardless of what you can donate.

On the tour, we’ll see and talk about all four aspects of this major project: the transit elements, the public spaces, the renovation of the historic station, and—as you know from following this blog over the past week or so—lots of private-sector developments!

See you Saturday morning!

Here’s how it works: Head on down to the LoDo side of the historic station at 17th & Wynkoop at about 9:50 AM. Whoever shows up, that will be our tour group. We’ll start promptly at 10:00 AM and conclude around 11:00 AM at the new light rail station by the Millennium Bridge. The suggested donation for the tour is $10 per person and all proceeds go to the non-profit Student Chapter of the American Planning Association at the University of Colorado Denver, but you’re welcome to attend regardless of what you can donate.

Prep work has started on the two wing building sites as well as Wynkoop Plaza, and significant progress has been made on the second half of the underground bus facility. On the tour, we’ll see and talk about all four aspects of this major project: the transit elements, the public spaces, the new private-sector developments, and the renovation of the historic station.

Join me this Saturday to get all the details on this massive civic investment that will transform Downtown Denver!

Our next tour is Saturday, April 7, 2012 at 10:00 AM.

Here’s how it works: Head on down to the LoDo side of the historic station at 17th & Wynkoop at about 9:50 AM. Whoever shows up, that will be our tour group. We’ll start promptly at 10:00 AM and conclude around 11:00 AM at the new light rail station by the Millennium Bridge. The suggested donation for the tour is $10 per person and all proceeds go to the non-profit Student Chapter of the American Planning Association at the University of Colorado Denver, but you’re welcome to attend regardless of what you can donate.

Prep work has started on the two wing building sites as well as Wynkoop Plaza, and significant progress has been made on the second half of the underground bus facility. On the tour, we’ll see and talk about all four aspects of this major project: the transit elements, the public spaces, the new private-sector developments, and the renovation of the historic station.

Join me this Saturday to get all the details on this massive civic investment that will transform Downtown Denver!

We usually begin our tours at 10:00 AM. But this Saturday, that time would coincide exactly with the kickoff of Denver’s big St. Patrick’s Day Parade—the parade’s 50th Anniversary no less!—so this time only we’re shifting the start of our tour to 2:00 PM. That way, you can come on down to LoDo, enjoy the parade, have lunch, and then join us for a one-hour overview of the four major components of the Union Station project: the transit infrastructure, the public spaces, the private-sector development, and the renovation of the historic station.

Here’s how it works: Head on down to the LoDo side of the historic station at the corner of 17th & Wynkoop at about 1:50 PM. Whoever shows up, that will be our tour group. We’ll start promptly at 2:00 PM and conclude around 3:00 PM. It’s an informal, informative, and fun way to spend an hour learning about Denver’s biggest current civic project.

A special note: Ever since we started our DenverInfill tours of Union Station in October 2010, we’ve had a suggested donation for the tour of $10/person, with all proceeds going to the non-profit Union Station Advocates. The money we’ve raised for Union Station Advocates over the past year and a half has made a big difference in helping the organization promote the Union Station project and engage citizens in advocating for excellence in the design and implementation of the project’s public spaces.

However, beginning with this tour, I will be directing all donations we raise through the tours to a different non-profit organization: the Student Chapter of the American Planning Association at the University of Colorado Denver.

At the beginning of the year, I left Matrix Design Group to embark on a new aspect of my career in urban planning: academics. I now teaching full-time at the College of Architecture and Planning in the Master of Urban and Regional Planning program. The Student Chapter of APA is an important organization I’m committed to helping. Their mission: “to promote the involvement of student planners in local, regional, and national planning activities and to provide a mechanism through which students can interact with professionals, address common concerns, and receive support in their endeavors in the field of planning.” So, while I’m still very involved with Union Station Advocates, our DenverInfill tours of Union Station will now be supporting another worth group that is focused on improving our nation’s built environment. As always though, everyone is welcome to join us on the tour, whether you choose to make a donation or not.

I hope to see you this Saturday afternoon at 2:00 PM!

Meanwhile, keep checking this blog for Rick’s regular Union Station updates and other goings-on in the Downtown development scene… and enjoy the holidays!

The Colorado district council of the Urban Land Institute held a major event this past week, Denver’s first Transit-Oriented Marketplace. My thanks to Kathleen McCormick with Fountainhead Communications in Boulder for providing DenverInfill with this recap of the event:

Report from ULI TOD Marketplace

The mood was upbeat among the more than 350 people who attended ULI Colorado’s TOD Marketplace at the Embassy Suites Downtown, where we heard from some of the nation’s most experienced finance, development, and transit experts about creative solutions for transit-oriented development. Over the course of the day, we learned about the successes of recent TOD projects and innovations in financing, housing, parking, public-private partnerships, and other components that could pave the way for more development around stations in our region’s expanding public transit system.

ULI Colorado Chair Chris Achenbach opened the program with Phil Washington, general manager of the Regional Transportation District (RTD), who discussed the roll-out of the FasTracks expansion of 57 new commuter and light rail stations, a new transit development policy, and pilot programs to encourage development around transit stations. Keynote speaker Steven Goldin, director of real estate for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), the nation’s second-largest transit system, said transit-oriented development is complicated, and we need to simplify the message for the public to “ideas that resonate like jobs, mobility, and growth.” Another keynoter Emerick Corsi, President of Forest City Enterprises Real Estate Asset Services, the nation’s largest TOD developer, advised us to “embrace the city and neighborhood next door” by looking at development plans holistically and branding stations to create individual identify within the vision for the whole network.

I’d like to have been at all the concurrent sessions—TOD housing, parking, and demographics, and the TAP presentations on Lakewood, Denver, and Aurora—but I chose to focus on learning about innovative financing, urbanizing the suburbs, and joint development with public-private partnerships, and I came away with some great ideas.

Over drinks and appetizers in the ballroom, we checked out Great Sites Trading Floor, with exhibit materials on over 40 TOD sites at play in the region, and applauded fellow ULI members who won raffle prizes like Bronco tickets and registration to the ULI Fall Meeting next October in… Denver.

Kudos to the local and national speakers, event chairs Denise Balkas and Peter Kenney, the TOD program committee, all the volunteers, and our ULI Colorado staff.

– Kathleen McCormick, Fountainhead Communications, Boulder

Here’s how it works: Head on down to the LoDo side of the historic station at 17th & Wynkoop at about 9:50 AM. Whoever shows up, that will be our tour group. We’ll start promptly at 10:00 AM and conclude around 11:00 AM at the new light rail station by the Millennium Bridge. The suggested donation for the tour is $10 per person and all proceeds go to the non-profitUnion Station Advocates, but you’re welcome to attend regardless of what you can donate.

This is your chance to get a detailed overview of the project’s major components: the public spaces, the transit/transportation facilities, the new private-sector development, and the reuse of the historic structure.

See you Saturday morning!

The ULI-Colorado TOD Marketplace is a full-day conference of national and local speakers, workshops and a Great Sites Trading Floor that will be held at the Embassy Suites in downtown Denver (14th & Stout) on November 17, 2011, from 7:30 am – 6 pm.

The TOD Marketplace breaks into four program sections:

• National speakers including Emerick Corsi of Forest City Enterprises and Steven Goldin of Washington Metro, the two most successful and prolific TOD developers in the U.S.
• Panels featuring national and local experts on innovative finance, parking, redevelopment, housing, and public-private partnerships,
• Workshops on key sites including Lakewood Federal Center and Five Points
• A Great Sites Trading Floor where 30 developers present data and opportunities on the region’s best development sites within a half-mile of transit.

Title sponsors are RTD, Forest City Enterprises, and Snell & Wilmer. Other major sponsors include AECOM, Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG), Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, (EDC), Xcel, G.K. Baum, Denver Urban Renewal Authority (DURA), Arvada Urban Renewal Authority (AURA), Beck, Urban Land Conservancy, Medici, IBI Group, Saunders Construction, First Bank, PCL, and the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA).

Registration is open to members and non-members. For a lot more detail on the conference and registration information, please visit the event’s page at the ULI website here.

Have a great weekend!