Help Continue the Renaissance along West Colfax
Residents, property owners, and business owners along West Colfax, we need your help!
Lakewood City Council is considering exemptions to the Lakewood 200 Growth Limitation Initiative for Ward 2, specifically in areas located in an Opportunity Zone with mixed-use zoning. WCCA and the Lakewood-W. Colfax BID support this proposal put forward by our two Ward 2 City Council members, Sharon Vincent and Jacob LaBure, because it will help support future investment and economic vitality in the area. We are asking supporters to write or call City Council members to encourage a “yes” vote on these exclusions for Ward 2.
While we would like to see exemptions for all Opportunity Zones along West Colfax (in both Ward 1 and Ward 2), we believe the limited proposal for Ward 2 exclusions is a productive compromise and will allow some incremental progress to continue.
The land use context and needs vary in the City’s five wards. For instance, Ward 4 has dramatically different needs than Ward 2. We all recognize that land use policy is a critical driver of economic development and revitalization. As an economically challenged commercial corridor, West Colfax still needs more residents to support our businesses and attract new investment.
By and large, new commercial development—restaurants, retail, night life, etc.—is driven by population and demographics. Both national and independent commercial developers look at the catchment area and want to understand the trajectory of growth in any given area where they are considering investment. In other words, those who invest in and build commercial spaces want to see more “heads and beds” – the people who will become the customers for the new restaurants and retail outlets.
Sixty years ago, during the West Colfax mid-century heydays, this commercial corridor had the benefit of thousands and thousands of tourists traveling U. S. Route 40, who frequented the businesses here along our section of West Colfax on their way to the Rocky Mountains. When the Interstate was completed, along with 6th Avenue expansion, traffic patterns changed, and the area spiraled into a 30-year decline.
In the early part of the new century, spearheaded by the City in partnership with local residents and business owners, West Colfax rallied behind the first West Colfax Action Plan (adopted in 2006) and more recently, the West Colfax 2040 Vision Plan (2015). For more than a decade now, we have shared the vision for the renaissance of West Colfax. This vision always included additional residential development, particularly around RTD’s W Line, which opened in April 2013. Our collective vision was articulated by our community, captured in these plans, and adopted by City Council. Many have invested in this vision; some have committed their life’s savings to their business investments here.
Please help us continue the revitalization of West Colfax. We have more work to do!
We are requesting that Council allow the West Colfax renaissance to continue by approving the exemptions for blighted areas in the Ward 2 proposal coming to City Council on September 23.
Please let City Council know that you support this proposal. Encourage them to support more revitalization rather than less. Call or write all the names below.
Email list – Mayor, Council Members, Economic Development Director, and City Manager:
If you’d like to reach out by phone . . . all contact info is here:
https://www.lakewood.org/Government/City-Council-Landing/City-Council-Members
Read more articles from West Colfax Lately about the corridor—its history and recent progress:
Return of the Neon: The Resurgence of West Colfax
(a condensed 150-year History of the corridor), published in 2015
Quintessentially Colfax! Lakewood's Famous Avenue Follows Its Roots to Revival
(an update on the West Colfax Renaissance), published in 2016