Denver Parks and Recreation is working to achieve the goal of ensuring every resident has a park within a 10-minute walk of where they live. The purchase of a .4 acre property where the old Zing Credit Union was located will accomplish that goal for thousands of nearby residents.
However, some city leaders question whether the millions of dollars spent to acquire the land should have been used elsewhere.
“This was a parcel that, when it came up, closes that gap in one of the fastest-growing residential neighborhoods in all of Denver,” Denver Parks and Rec Executive Director Jolon Clark explained.
The property near 10th Avenue and Acoma Street in downtown Denver is poised for a major upgrade, compared to the empty parking lot, the old bank windows riddled with bullet holes and the signs asking folks not to urinate on the property.
“Maybe some volleyball courts or an area for off-leash dogs,” said Clark, mentioning some ideas for the area. “But that really is going to be determined by the community.”
DPR received city council approval to use money from the Denver Parks Legacy Fund approved by voters in 2018 to collect a 0.25% sales tax to ‘expand, upgrade, and maintain’ Denver’s parks. The city will now purchase the land for just shy of $3.2 million, even as it is in the midst of significant budget cuts.
“We still need to be able to be strategic about purchase because once a property like this is sold to somebody other than us, then it’s going to be a building forever,” said Clark. “It’s never going to be parks, open space; it’s never going to be accessible to the public in that same way. ”
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However, city council members, including District 5 Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer, question whether those same funds, which could also be used to maintain parks, should be used differently.
“Should we be spending this $3.1 million on a piece of land when we can’t even manage to get bathrooms in all of our parks, or maintain the safety of our parks?” she said to CBS Colorado.
Sawyer was among five city council members who voted no on appropriating funds for the purchase.
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“This is about the taxpaying residents of the City of Denver who do not feel like they are getting the value for their dollar, because so many city services have been cut back so significantly,” she added.
Sawyer says one of the city council’s top budget priorities has been restoring city services, and she also has concerns about where additional funding will come from.
“There’s no dollars for designing and constructing a park on that land,” said Sawyer.
For now, another Denver park is in the making, and the possibilities are brewing.
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“One of the things that was most exciting for us here is this sits along the future 5280 trail, and that will be built out in different segments,” said Clark. “That will create bike access and a pedestrian thoroughfare right here along this street. We can get rid of some of these curb cuts, make it an even safer pedestrian experience as this connects into the arts, the art museum, and the library and civic center, and then on into downtown, and the state capital and 16th Street and all of those things.”
