DENVER — Denver’s Green Valley Ranch neighborhood is 17 miles from downtown and less than 10 miles from Denver International Airport, but some residents are concerned that city investment hasn’t kept up with the community’s growth.
“Green Valley Ranch is really the, you know, front porch of Denver, but we feel like we're being put in the back alley,” Marcus Weaver said. “We don't have a post office.”
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Weaver is president of the District 11 Community Development Association, a registered neighborhood organization for the community.
“The thing that drew me most out here was the diversity,” Weaver said. “It was affordable. It was a great place to start. And as a matter of fact, instead of going on a honeymoon, we ended up buying a house instead. We considered it an investment living out here with just so much to offer.”
But Weaver said the community is missing key amenities and infrastructure, including an adequate maintenance facility to support parks and recreation operations in Green Valley Ranch.
“In 2012, they were considering bringing a maintenance facility out here… the money got diverted to another maintenance facility downtown,” Weaver said. “You're talking about a facility that was promised to us through the RISE Bond at $7 million and we get stuck with one that's about $2 million.”
Parks and open spaces were a major reason Green Valley Ranch resident Stephanie Calhoun moved to the neighborhood six years ago.
“I love it. It's really nice. There's not a lot of crime from what I've noticed. The parks are amazing,” Calhoun said.
But Calhoun, who uses a wheelchair also worries about community infrastructure.
“Honestly, I would love to see more ramps and a sidewalk going down Tower Road, because after you hit like 56th, there's not much of a sidewalk anymore, and that makes it really hard for me to do any business with any of the businesses down there,” Calhoun said.
Nikki Weddle, an educator and basketball coach at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Early College in Green Valley Ranch, said she remembers when there were hardly any roads or businesses at all.
“I've been in Green Valley for at least 42 years,” Weddle said. “I just remember 56th being a whole dirt road and 48th wasn't even developed or Green Valley Ranch Boulevard,” Weddle said.
When DIA opened in 1995, the neighborhoods closest to the airport, including Green Valley Ranch, experienced a lot of growth.
“A lot of development. Obviously, the airport coming out here has made people move out here as well,” Weddle said. “It's definitely evolved. It's a lot of diversity. You have your Latinos, you have your white people, you have your Black people. You have all kind of ethnicities within our community. And I think that makes Green Valley Ranch, Green Valley Ranch.”
Weddle said she would like to see more locally-owned businesses in the neighborhood.
“I wish they would put a little bit more eateries out here, good eateries, not just your fast-food eateries,” Weddle said.
Weaver would also like to see more locally-owned restaurants and store options.
“We have King Soopers and Walmart. Sprouts was a good step in the right direction, too. But I mean, the cost of groceries has risen, that cost of gas has risen, and that probably does affect Green Valley Ranch residents having to commute from Denver to core Denver, back to here,”
Weaver said. “I feel other areas that, you know, have the same tax base, have more. I just feel that because we're so far out here and we get shuffled with DIA, I think we get kind of left behind.”
But Weaver and Weddle think the neighborhood’s distance to the city’s center has some benefits.
“The seclusion of it. It is nice to be away from the city and not be so close to the city. And if you want to go into the city, you can easily go into the city,” Weddle said. “I'm just proud to be a part of this community.”
Weaver said the distance sometimes discourages some Denver residents from living in Green Valley Ranch.
“A lot of people do say it's the traffic that really doesn't allow them to live out there. It's ‘you live so far, you live in Egypt’, you know. But you know, if this is Egypt, then, man, we got a tomb of gold out here,” Weaver said.
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