DENVER — Denver’s RiNo Arts District has a new community space.
Two years after the groundbreaking, Denargo Market hosted a grand opening block party Thursday evening to celebrate its first phase opening to the public. It includes green space, a playground and Rhingo, a new 30-foot climbable rhino structure.
The development will eventually include 17 acres of residential, retail, office and hospitality space along with the new public spaces.
Denver7 spoke with nearby neighbors, including Anthony Aguilar and Mandy Lucnik, who saw the construction process from their apartment windows over the last several months.
“It's nice to have something like this so close to my front door,” Aguilar said.
“We're just really excited to have this here,” Lucnik added.
The city’s largest food market sat on the site until it was destroyed by a fire in 1971. Developers now see it rising from the ashes.
“Denargo Market was the breadbasket for all of the region in Colorado during the last century,” said Sean Campbell, CEO of Formativ Real Estate Group, which partnered with Golub & Co. on the development. “I think what we're trying to create is a 24-hour, five-minute mini city within our city. And the idea about it, it's going to be community-driven. We're going to just help facilitate.”
Apartment buildings have sprouted up in the area in recent years, but ground-floor retail space has largely sat empty.
“You've got 3,000, 2,500 folks that live right here around it, and your only amenity is the gas station and the 7-11, so the bar is low,” Campbell told Denver7. “The idea here is to provide quality, utilitarian retail, really great kind of things that we would want to go to, whether it's a dog wash or a yoga class or a bike shop, but also just a place to buy, you know, a gallon of milk.”
But there are also concerns in the area about the homeless population and drug use along the nearby South Platte River Trail.
“It's just something that is in the back of my mind,” Aguilar said of the issue.
“[We] do have two teenage girls, so that's kind of a concern,” Lucnik added. “I don't let them wander around anywhere outside the building at night... Overall, this summer, it hasn't been too bad.”
Across the street from Denargo Market, the Crossroads homeless shelter run by the Salvation Army has come under scrutiny for poor living conditions.
It’s not clear how or if new development nearby will impact its future. So Denver7 brought that question to the city’s Department of Housing Stability (HOST), which sent Denver7 the following statement:
We don’t have any update to the info that was provided earlier this summer on Crossroads shelter. This facility plays a key role in providing refuge and stabilizing support for 300 unhoused neighbors each night. There are no immediate plans to relocate emergency shelter services provided at Crossroads. As shared at a City Council committee meeting earlier this summer, there are some facility challenges with the site, and we currently are evaluating whether to make additional facility improvement investments or to possibly find a different building for shelter. At this time, no decisions have been made regarding a possible site relocation.
Denver7 also asked Campbell about the shelter being so close to the new development. He advocated for the shelter to move to a different facility.
“It's a great question, and it's a very complicated one, and it's a political football, but it's also a humanitarian-like opportunity,” he said. “That building is still not functional as it serves. So I think the city and everybody, there's a political will, there's a financial will. We all come together and make smart decisions for people that aren't as fortunate of ourselves, and help them lift them up. You don't get lifted up in a warehouse.”
As the area keeps changing, neighbors are ready to take advantage of the new parks and public spaces.
“We really love being down here in this area,” said Lucnik. “This is such an up-and-coming side of RiNo, and I'm really excited to see what else they can bring into here.”
