Denver proposes leveraging $500M for downtown redevelopment
This seems like a smart idea to leverage private development downtown of housing via new construction and office conversions with public funds. If the city could allocate $100M-200M of this towards housing I wonder how many projects that could enable? IIRC, I've seen developers mentions a 20% gap in office to residential conversion costs where subsidies are needed. Leverage the funds for a couple thousand units in Upper Downtown and re-activate those streets!
Other public projects that I can think of that the city could work on would be adding more permanent public restrooms, the completion of the Skyline Park renovation, re-configuring the RTD bust network into high-frequency trunks through downtown with enhanced stations (still have no idea if the Colfax BRT project will upgrade stations within downtown), public safety improvements via a police substation setup downtown, enhancement of cross-streets into shared streets, fully funding the Urban Forest Initiative, and (maybe) some public housing.