In the spirit of the season there was a demonstration of ice carving today in Skyline Park. Here a couple of shots of the final product.

This evening this sculpture will be removed so another can take its place. This rotation will go through Saturday. Very festive and fun.

I also saw some holiday carolers on my way back. Happy Holidays!

Just a week before Christmas and I wanted to share some photos of the holiday lights that are around downtown. Enjoy!

I recently discovered that a neighborhood in our Downtown is in the running to be selected for HGTV’s Change the World Start at Home community revitalization effort. I have seen the commercials but did not realize that the Curtis Park neighborhood is up against a number of other communities across the U.S. vying to be selected. You can read about this initiative here and you can read about what will happen in Curtis Park if they are selected here.

With their partners HGTV plans to focus on historic preservation, green streets and community re-building. I have watched an increasing number of shows in which Denver has been featured and think this would be great exposure for our Downtown. I hope they get selected. If you choose to you can cast your vote for Denver here. Good luck Curtis Park!

A couple of months ago the Victory Bar & Grill closed its doors after less than a year of operation at 1512 Curtis Street in Denver’s central business district. Last month in the same space, a new eatery called Baur’s Ristorante opened - you can read more in this Rocky Mountain News article.

This building has a long and rich history and this space was a very well known candy shop up until 1960. I ate at Victory once for lunch and it was okay so I have high hopes for this new incarnation. It sounds like it will be from the article. The new signage is nice and I am glad this is no longer vacant retail space.

My favorite part of the building is the huge Baur’s sign that projects from the face of the building. Added last year, it evokes the feeling of the old theater district that went all the way up Curtis throughout downtown. Baur’s has a great team behind it (Jimmy Lambatos co-founder of Quizno’s and Footers Catering) so I hope they can become a new destination restaurant with a strong client base. I wish them luck!

A new police station opened yesterday in the Jefferson Park neighborhood. You can read about in this Denver Business Journal article. This is great for so many reasons but for me I really like that ground floor retail space in the Zocalo Condominium building is being used for the station. Not only will this result in more “eyes on the street”, but will help this part of the neighborhood feel more like a community.

Talk about a win-win scenario for those residents! Speaking of those residents, more and more people continue to call Jefferson Park home and you can get a good sense for how much is going on in a recent Denver Infill posting which announces yet another project being constructed right there on the park itself.