DENVER — Denver’s Globeville neighborhood is set for a major transformation as the city breaks ground on a multimillion-dollar reconstruction of Washington Street.
Drive through Washington Street in Denver's Globeville neighborhood and you'll find yourself on a very bumpy ride.
“This area is very old. They haven't fixed our streets. There are holes everywhere,” said Globeville resident Cristina Dominguez Espinoza.
Espinoza’s brother owns Taqueria El Valle, located directly on Washington Street.
“We get a lot of traffic here, and it's hard. We don't have many [traffic] lights,” she said.
More often than not, said Espinoza, restaurant patrons will see a crash happen outside their windows.
“The sidewalks are not that good for walking. There are a lot of people walking through here, and it's not a good thing," she said.
Those days will soon be over as the busy corridor prepares to get a major facelift.
“This street is about to be transformed, truly transformed,” said Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Executive Director Amy Ford.
On Friday, the City of Denver broke ground on a multimillion-dollar project to transform Washington Street over the next three years by fully reconstructing the roadway from E. 47th Avenue to Denver’s northern boundary at E. 52nd Avenue.
The reconstruction will introduce modern pedestrian and bicycle facilities, safer intersections, expanded right-of-way, and new utilities designed to keep pace with Denver’s growth.
It will also improve connectivity from the neighborhood to nearby areas such as the River North District, Interstate 70, and the National Western Center.
“This is more than simply breaking ground on the street. This is actually providing the outcomes of the ask of this community. It's ensuring that we as a city deliver on the promises that we have made,” said District 9 Denver City Councilmember Darrell Watson.
Discussions to improve Globeville have been ongoing for over a decade.
In a proposed neighborhood plan from 2014, residents shared their ideas on what would make the neighborhood better.
More connectivity, more investments, and cleaner streets -- are just some of those needs.
Earlier this month, Denver7 | Your Voice visited the central Denver neighborhood, where residents discussed the tight-knit community and their concerns about being displaced by new development.
Neighbors told us they want the city to hear them and developers to invest in them.
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Globeville residents feel left behind by Denver leaders: Denver7 | Your Voice
Transfiguration Orthodox Cathedral has been a part of the Globeville community since 1898.
“There's always been kind of a parallel between the prosperity of the church, this particular church, and that of the neighborhood,” said Father Seraphim Robertson.
At one point in the 1980s, the church looked at relocating, but Globeville’s spirit kept them in place.
“The phrase was ‘bloom where we're planted’. So the church community began to improve and clean up the church property, and that spilled over into the neighborhood, and that influence grew across the neighborhood,” said Fr. Robertson.
After more than a century of ups and downs, Fr. Robertson says he's excited to see the growth and progress ahead.
“Those parallel paths I mentioned seem to continue to be parallel. The church has begun to thrive again. And it's encouraging to see signs that maybe the neighborhood is on the way up as well, in certain ways,” he said.
