Colfax Avenue

U.S. 40, one of America’s first transcontinental highways, stretches 26 miles east to west through the Denver metro area, including the cities of Aurora, Denver, and Lakewood. Locally known as Colfax Avenue, it began as one of the first routes to the Wild West, and by the early 20th century had become one of America’s main streets. Colfax Avenue’s big boom time, the 1930s through 1960s, ended when I-70 cut through the metro area, leading vehicles to bypass the avenue. Today, Colfax is an eclectic mix of period motels, small mom and pop businesses, chain restaurants, offices, a smattering of housing, and some big box development. The last trolley left in 1950, but the RTD bus that traverses East Colfax is the busiest bus transit line in the Denver metro area.1

Redevelopment and new transit options led by civic and grassroots efforts are spurring a renaissance that has garnered investments and new visions for Colfax. The Lakewood Reinvestment Authority has identified a zone for focused reinvestment. And Denver business improvement districts (BIDs) for Colfax on the Hill and West Colfax are working to regenerate commercial uses, intensify the corridor, improve physical conditions, and create their own identities.2

East Colfax
At the east end of the metro area, a one-mile stretch of Colfax in Aurora is undergoing a complete transformation. The 578-acre former Fitzsimons Army Medical Center is being redeveloped as the Fitzsimons Life Science District and Anschutz Medical Campus, a high-tech health care, research, and business campus. Among the new facilities are the Children’s Hospital and the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus, including the university’s hospital, health sciences schools, and the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes. A new U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital will also be built at the site.3

On the northern part of the campus, Forest City Science + Technology Group, with master planning by Elkus Manfredi Architects, is building the 184-acre Colorado Science + Technology Park, dedicated to life sciences companies. Design Workshop completed the initial master plan for this area for the Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority, the agency overseeing all redevelopment at the site. Recently finished at the village core of the site is 21 Fitzsimons, developed by Pauls Corporation, which has 240 apartments over retail with a fitness center and pool.4

The combined medical campus at build-out is expected to have 18.5 million square feet of space and provide 44,000 jobs, as well as millions of dollars in property taxes. Two light-rail stations are expected as part of the I-225 light-rail line. This transit investment has spurred other investment on the site’s perimeter, particularly the south side of Colfax. Older motels, a mobile home park, and other underused sites have been purchased and are being redeveloped into mixed-use projects. Investments of some $500 million are underway from retail, hotel, and housing development surrounding the campus. One project is Fitzsimons Village, a 31-acre mixeduse development master planned by the PCS Group, with 2 million square feet of office and commercial space, two hotels, 865 housing units and six acres of open space.5

The Aurora Urban Renewal Authority has focused both public-sector improvements and private-sector investment in the East End Arts District along Colfax, the only main street that Aurora has ever known. The Lakewood-based developer Medici Communities took a big risk between 2004 and 2007 and completed Florence Square, a 4.5-acre mixed-use project in the heart of the new district. The RNL design for 180 rental apartments and live-work units and 16,000 square feet of retail space remains fully leased and focused on affordable units for households earning between 40 and 60 percent of the area’s median income. The City of Aurora built a new public library and parking in the district, and an African-American theater company, the Shadow Theater, has relocated there.6

The Lowenstein Theater/Tattered Cover Redevelopment, located between Elizabeth and Columbine streets, is a thriving cultural-retail complex and an anchor for redevelopment along East Colfax. Completed in 2006, it was the first project launched under the new Main Street form-based rezoning, which has been adopted and mapped along most of Colfax in Denver. Most of the recent development that follows Main Street zoning is located in the Colfax on the Hill District.7

A catalyst project, Chamberlin Heights, located at Colfax and Steele Street, was the first new residential development on Colfax in 80 years. Designed by Buchanan Yonushewski Group and completed in 2005, it has 56 condominiums and 5,200 square feet of retail space.8

Along East Colfax in east Denver, where a BID known as The FAX is being established, modest one-story, one-block-long retail projects have been built since 2005, and developers have shown interest in a mixed-use affordable project. The FAX Partnership continues to garner support for investment along Colfax from Colorado Boulevard to Yosemite, the border with Aurora.9

West Colfax
The 16-acre St. Anthony’s Hospital, located along the West Colfax BID, is relocating in a few years. The West Line light-rail system, scheduled to open in 2013, will parallel Colfax two blocks to the south. A light-rail stop at Perry Street, a 10-minute walk to the hospital site, will provide significant transit-oriented development opportunities. These major catalysts, together with current West Colfax BID efforts, such as resources for tax incentives, small business financing, market analysis, and streetscape improvements, will help transform this section of Colfax. Lakewood has created transit zoning, and some station areas have been rezoned to transit mixed-use (TMU) districts to encourage development around stations.10

In 2006, the first Colorado Colfax Marathon was run from one end of Colfax to the other in the metro area. This annual event has required regional cooperation and has shown that Colfax is a main street whose past and future are worth celebrating. Though it is not the most aesthetic corridor in places, many small businesses remain committed to Colfax. The next decade will be a critical time in its main street history.11

• 1. Deana Swetlik. Colorado Urbanizing: Experiencing New Urbanism. Colorado Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism. CNU 17.
• 2. Ibid.
• 3. Ibid.
• 4. Ibid.
• 5. Ibid.
• 6. Ibid.
• 7. Ibid.
• 8. Ibid.
• 9. Ibid.
• 10. Ibid.
• 11. Ibid.