The Plan Worked! - River and Corridor Transformations

The Brighton Boulevard Corridor through River North was once an industrial thoroughfare connecting downtown to the interstate and the former Stapleton Airport. It has emerged as one of Denver’s trendiest and most-expensive multigenerational hotspots, rising steadily in the face of rapidly escalating land values to buy park land, create affordable housing, and build community.

Through steady and passionate community engagement, solid future land use and transit planning, and an understanding of the city’s past and present industrial landscape, the Brighton Corridor — along the South Platte through the River North neighborhood — serves up a resilient landscape that connects people to nature. It celebrates history-drenched neighborhoods, links them with edgy and sustainable new urban transformations, and provides the backdrop for Denver’s most creative artists and families. Denver’s new mandatory affordable-housing requirements answered the challenge of housing affordability; subsequently, developers are successfully introducing mixed market-rate and dedicated affordable housing to balance the supply in River North. This is prompting new challenges to growth on the boundaries of existing historic neighborhoods.