Quote:
Originally Posted by Brainpathology
Yeah only 40 years. Barely enough time to leave and figure out that the City other than laudable efforts to increase some transit (which they did mostly mediocre jobs of at that), doesn't do anything to actually address the problems it has. You're still headed toward museum city status where literally no one but the rich can own anything anywhere near downtown. I remember when Elich's moved from it's first location and that definitely sucked. It had a chance to reestablish itself in a new location and for a while was looking like it would do a good job of it. Now you're moving it yet again, which is a waste of time. Might as well kill it then try to pretend you actually care about its historic value to Denver.
Besides most of you commenting on how it should be moved include putting it out of town in the 'burbs "like every other city".
Might as well make that Denver's new motto "Denver - like every other city" .
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Look, I get it. You drive into the city at night and see the Ferris wheel lit up, along with the roller coasters, and the observation tower. It gives you that warm fuzzy feeling of knowing there's an amusement park right up against a city skyline. Like something out of SimCity. It gives you this feel of "Yeah, that's something you don't see in any other American city, which makes us exemplary!"
But....... let's be real here. This is an amusement park that has only been there for 20 years. That's not historic in my opinion. Let's also remember this is something that is only used a fraction of the time (<50%). Even when the park is open, the land is only used while the park is operating. As soon as it closes, people leave and go home. The rest of the year it's essentially a large piece of art work for the city to look at. This is NOT a good use of this land, especially given it's location and proximity to the CBD and Union Station. From what was posted over on Denver Infill, this was never the original planned use of this land anyways. It was simply a catalyst in the 90s to jump start the downtown Renaissance the city so desperately needed at the time.
It's also worth noting it will probably be several years yet before any piece of the park actually moves. As described in the River Mile project, they want to consolidate the sprawling parking lot into a large parking ramp to serve the amusement park. Beyond that, they could easily do the same with the other monstrosity lots serving Auroria and the Pepsi Center. This opens up a TON of land that will take a long time to fully build out and up. I would wager it would still take a long time, even if Amazon announces they are coming to Denver.
I totally understand why people love having Elitch's down by downtown, etc, etc, but from an urban planning prospective, it's increasingly becoming an inefficient use of land. And every time a parking lot in downtown gets developed upon, this argument gains more and more traction.
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