DENVER — It does not matter if the Rockies are in season; there is a team dedicated to serving the ballpark district, making it a more welcoming area for all to enjoy.
Denver7 first reported on the creation of the Ballpark General Improvement District in 2024 where a tax would be collected from businesses and residents in the neighborhood to support the district. We also covered Opening Day for the Colorado Rockies sharing how the Ballpark Ambassadors help with safety and security in the area.
Luke McCarthy, operations manager for the Ballpark General Improvement District ambassador program, sees the impact his team is having on the community both in cleaning up the area and making people feel safe.
"It's almost night and day from the first day that we stepped off in March 10th last year in 2025," said McCarthy. "Every street corner, every light pole was filled with posters, with stickers. Every crosswalk sign had stickers, graffiti on it."
An official ribbon cutting ceremony took place on Thursday with the Ballpark General Improvement District having a new neighborhood office. Kate McKenna, executive director of the Ballpark General Improvement District, explained how this space will help serve the community.
"We are here in the new ballpark improvement district community office and while it does serve as home base for us in our operations and our ambassador team, we also hope to be able to open our doors to other community organizations and gatherings that are in need of somewhere," McKenna said.
She explained the district covers over 40 blocks focusing on getting more people back into the area and helping businesses too.
"We support more than 130 local businesses. It's actually pretty incredible, Ballpark doesn't have any major chains, everything is independently owned and operated. So being able to support that with what we're doing and to really be able to put community back into the community that's funding, is really at the heart of what we're doing," McKenna said.
Besides having a new home base, the team also celebrated their one-year anniversary of serving the community with the release of its inaugural annual report.
"We've collected over 22,000 pounds of litter, so that's anything that's blown around that doesn't even include the 500 trash cans that we've serviced," said McKenna. We've also been able to remove 7,000 graffiti tags and poster. We call it vertical litter, and then also be able to both survey and water over a 1,000 trees."
Not only have they helped clean up the area, the district also has safety initiatives like investing in additional lighting and safety escorts. Truly, a team that is knocking it out of the ballpark both on and off season.
"Being a ballpark and us wearing the ballpark brand, we represent this whole district. So being out here, it's definitely an ownership and a responsibility that we feel in a way that our team carries every day," McCarthy said.
