DENVER — Patches of asphalt are being ripped up and replaced with gardens, trees and native plants in Five Points. It's part of a new city effort to capture and clean stormwater before it reaches the South Platte River.
The Swift Implementation of Green Infrastructure program, known as SIGI, aims to quickly install dozens of small green infrastructure projects in neighborhoods that historically lacked trees and permeable landscaping. The effort is currently focused in Five Points. This year, crews began converting unused strips of pavement — including a site at 24th and Champa Streets — into planted basins that slow runoff, filter pollutants and passively water new plantings.
“These are going to be beautiful spaces in an area that’s otherwise just paved,” said Avery Ellis, owner of United Ecology — the landscape firm hired by the city to remove asphalt and install the gardens.
Ellis said contractors leave the planting areas slightly sunken, so rain and snowmelt collect and percolate into soil rather than rush into the storm sewer system. The soil and plants together trap sediment and absorb containments.
Colin Bell, senior engineer for Denver’s Department of Transportation & Infrastructure (DOTI) Division of Green Infrastructure, said the program is one arm of the city’s wider wastewater and stormwater funding.
“You get a bill, and it’s this wastewater utility bill, and that money all gets rolled up into one pot that’s spent on stormwater projects and wastewater projected,” Bell said. “One approach to managing stormwater is building big pipes that go underground, that you don't see. The other approach is green infrastructure which is using plants and soils and trees and things that you can see on the ground to also manage stormwater.”
SIGI installations aim to catch and hold water on the surface, where vegetation and engineered soils can remove pollutants and reduce peak flows that contribute to flooding. The green approach will also provide visible neighborhood benefits like shade and trees.
DOTI identified 10 project locations across Five Points that are scheduled to be completed in 2026. Bell said that many of Denver’s hottest streets were located in Five Points, a neighborhood that had historically been passed over for infrastructure improvements and lacks urban canopy to reduce heat.
“If people who live there and businesses in the neighborhood weren’t able to plant trees and put irrigation systems in and keep them watered, no trees were able to grow,” Bell said. “Instead of having a nice, healthy landscape, you end up potentially just paving that useless spot on the street between the sidewalk and the road.”
United Ecology’s installations use native, drought- and salt-tolerant plants suited to Denver’s climate. Ellis said after an establishment period with occasional irrigation, the gardens should be self-sustaining from rain and snowmelt. The gardens include curb cuts, so street runoff enters the basins and flows through a shallow creek bed, watering the plants along the way before entering the South Platte River.
