Fifteen years ago, when painter Tracy Weil fled trendy Lower Downtown for a dusty industrial district to the northeast, there wasn’t much going on.
On the site of a former auto shop along 36th Street, he built a structure with a studio, a gallery and his home. Soon, Denver’s River North took off.
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“It’s been primarily seen as an industrial area, and now it’s becoming much more urban,” said Weil, board chairman of the RiNo Art District. “I have neighbors now. That’s kind of cool.”
The developers, artists and entrepreneurs who quickly refashioned the gritty diagonal blocks of River North into a vibrant, if offbeat, neighborhood now are banding together to tax themselves.
They say they’re seizing a critical opportunity.
The city is investing big in the area, with plans for a $26 million overhaul next year of Brighton Boulevard, a new park near Great Divide’s under-construction brewery and a new pedestrian bridge near the 38th/Blake station on the coming East Line commuter rail.
Supporters want to create two new districts that would allow property owners, via a mix of taxes, to pool $3 million upfront and $700,000 a year.
Weil, a co-chair of the tax districts campaign with Zeppelin Development project manager Justin Croft, says the tax districts would help chart River North’s future and firmly establish its identity.
Nestled amid the hulking old buildings are breweries that soon will number a dozen, the Industry Denver business incubator and hundreds of other businesses, including 325 art studios.
When development takes off in an area, Weil said, “a lot of times, you lose that creative element and it gets to be uninteresting,” with early settlers — in this case, artists — getting priced out.
But Weil and Croft say they have encountered few opponents among property and business owners who generally want to preserve RiNo’s artistic flavor.
After a June 1 public hearing, the City Council will consider allowing November votes by property owners and businesses to create two new taxing districts:
• A business improvement district, the city’s 12th and, by area, its largest. It would be similar to districts downtown and a new one for the Art District on Santa Fe. Commercial properties would pay $4 per $1,000 of assessed value, raising about $500,000 a year for advocacy, marketing and “placemaking” (including installation of signs and stark metal markers branding the area as the RiNo Art District).
Potentially, advocates also might consider a program to help keep artist spaces affordable.
• A smaller, overlapping, general-improvement district that would cover the western part of River North. It would raise money for lighting, public-space improvements and maintenance. Both commercial and residential properties in that area would pay an additional $4 per $1,000 of assessed value, raising $200,000 a year.
The proceeds, coupled with potential city, federal and private grants, could add enhancements along streets, the river and the new park, supporters say.
Within that smaller district, properties that front Brighton Boulevard between 29th and 44th streets also would pay a one-time frontage tax of $200 per linear foot — raising $3 million.
That money would supplement the city’s Brighton project. The city plans to replace pavement and add sidewalks and “cycle track” bike lanes to offset them from traffic lanes for more protection. The neighborhood would chip in for such items as trees, lights, nicer benches and irrigation.
“Without the extra $3 million that the Brighton-fronting property owners are putting up,” Croft said, “we would have ended up with basically just a concrete channel.”
Instead, Croft says, the result will be a revamped Brighton Boulevard that he and others see as more fitting for “RiNo’s main street.”
Jon Murray: 303-954-1405, jmurray@denverpost.com or twitter.com/JonMurray
