COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — As part of our Denver7 Your Voice series, we are hearing from residents at the Commerce City Fall Fest about what they value most about their community and what issues they'd like to see solved in the years ahead.
As people stopped by the festival's pumpkin patch, vendors, and kids' activities, Commerce City residents said Fall Fest reflects what makes their city special: a sense of closeness and connection.
"We've been coming since they started it, and they just do such a wonderful job, and it's such a great sense of community," said resident Carria Wilkinson.
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Lydia Vargas grew up in Commerce City and said that small-town feel is what sets it apart.
"I feel like it's a lot closer. I feel like there's so much that brings this community together. It's just a small town, and that's what I love about it. It's not so big," Vargas said.
Vargas pointed to local amenities and family activities as part of the appeal.
"Fall Fest, rec centers — we have a bunch of parks, and they just remodeled a bunch of them. We have a bunch of activities to do here. I feel like there's just a lot to do with the children," Vargas said.
Commerce City has long been known as an industrial town and a center for transportation, logistics, and distribution companies. The city's economic development department said more than 100 logistics and distribution companies call Commerce City home, including top employers like UPS, FedEx, GE Appliances, and Stellantis.
It’s hard to talk about Commerce City without talking about Suncor, a refinery that has become deeply intertwined with the city’s identity and decades of debate over pollution and public health. But residents said Commerce City’s story stretches far beyond the refinery that has long dominated its skyline.
"It's an industrial town, right? I mean, we have the refineries, we have the mills, and it built up more than that, and it built up even farther east. So just to see it come from a little tiny city to expand all the way past 120th and Tower is prideful for a Commerce City kid like me," said resident Branden Abeyta.
Calvin Brown, a longtime Commerce City resident, said the city’s growth has been impossible to miss, but not all of the changes have been welcome.
"They're putting new apartments all about where I live at," Brown said. "I used to like it more, though, because it was like — it was real quiet, no crime, wasn’t nothing really going on."
Commerce City has grown dramatically. By July 2025, its population had reached more than 72,000, up 58% since 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. However, the number of violent crimes in the city has grown at a much faster pace than the city's population, rising 276% between 2010 and 2025, according to data from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation's crime statistics dashboard.
When it comes to affordability, residents like Richard Cothran said Commerce City is more affordable than other Denver Metro cities, while Wilkinson said the cost of living is still an issue.
"It's a little more affordable than some other places, but I think affordability is really an issue for everybody right now," Wilkinson said.
Data from Redfin shows the average home sale price in Commerce City as of September was around $480,000, compared to Denver's average selling price of about $597,000.
Kathleen Eggleston, a longtime Commerce City resident, said the city's rapid growth has brought both benefits and challenges.
"I mean, it's just grown ... like massive," Eggleston said. "With Dick's (Sporting Goods) Park over there, we've gotten a lot of soccer fans and everything else; traffic has gotten a lot worse, but it's gotten worse everywhere."
Eggleston said she'd like to see more attention paid to the city's core and its small businesses.
"I think the core city down here needs a little more love and attention compared to up north," she said.
Her husband, Doug, said the community's character is what stands out most.
"Years ago, Commerce City had a bad rap, and it might have been bad. But there's a lot of good people here, a lot of good hardworking people. And that's the thing, it's like a family community," Doug said. "And pretty much we kind of all know each other."
Some younger residents said they'd like to see more offered for their age group. Alexander Cortez said there isn't much for teenagers in the city, but he appreciated that Fall Fest was free and accessible.
