Businesses that are so far surviving the renovation of the 16th Street Mall fear a one-year delay would further hurt them, and some worry they won’t make it. 

The 1.2 mile long outdoor mall serves as an anchor in downtown Denver for tourism, restaurants, small businesses and some night life. While the facelift is much needed, the construction work from Market Street to Broadway – with some portions already complete – has taken away restaurant patios, narrowed walkways next to heavy-equipment work and disrupted the flow of the RTD free shuttles that used to move some 3.6 million people every year.

Earlier this year, business owners gave competing assessments of the city’s famous 16th Street Mall. Some said everything is “rosy and great,” while others described being in a “rut” – diametrically opposed conclusions that, at times, served as a microcosm of the debate over whether downtown Denver is decaying or thriving.

“The construction project is great, but it’s way too lengthy for these businesses,” Marissa Williams, owner of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, told the Denver Gazette in her Denver Pavilions store, where the construction was occurring right outside. “I think it’s hurting the faith people have in downtown Denver.”

The city originally planned for the project to be complete in 2024. As envisioned, the renovation would increase public safety and mobility and create an amenity zone. It would reconstruct deteriorating building infrastructure, create new walkways and offer more greenery.

Officials from the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) said workers found “complex underground utilities down the transitway” built in the late 1800s. A department spokesperson said the city’s mitigation strategy caused delays.

The additional work and delays also translated to tens of millions of dollars more in spending. 

The contract for 16th Street Mall improvements increased to $172.5 million from the original $149 million price tag, according to DOTI, which revealed the city spent $72.1 million on the project so far. The new estimated completion date is now fall of 2025.

“We took what we learned about these various underground utilities in the first few blocks, to take new steps in subsequent blocks to minimize impacts to the overall schedule,” the city transportation spokesperson told The Denver Gazette.

The city began the renovation project of the 41-year-old 16th Street Mall in Spring 2022. Since then, a number of businesses have closed along the corridor, increasing anxiety among the companies battling to survive the renovation.

To help businesses, the Downtown Denver Partnership worked with the city to create a grant program to apply for financial assistance. The first, earlier grant offered $2,000 to help businesses prepare for the work through marketing and promotion. The second grant offered $7,500 or $15,000, depending on a company’s annual gross revenue. 

Annualized, that translates to $625 a month for the smaller business and $1,250 for the bigger ones.   

A Downtown Denver Partnership spokesperson said the group and the city have awarded more than $1 million in grants to help ensure that customers can easily find a business affected by construction. The money also helped with vacancy woes through tenant development programs, such as Popup Denver, which offers entrepreneurs rent and other financial assistance to renovate and occupy a vacant storefront.   

The partnership said it will continue to advocate for the businesses and seek new and creative ways to help them during the construction.

“With construction taking place directly following a global pandemic, we are acutely aware of the challenges ground-floor businesses face,” the group said.

Williams of the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory said her business received the $15,000 grant, which her company used for a month-and-a-half worth of rent. The chocolate shop owner described the grant as a gift but added: “It’s nothing compared to what we are losing.” 

Citing additional business closures across the mall, Williams said: “Construction has affected us severely.”

“We have a lot of tourists who come here and they’re like, ‘This is not the Denver I remember,'” she said. 

The Downtown Denver Partnership said it has requested $1.15 million in additional American Rescue Plan Act federal funding. The Denver City Council will decide whether to approve the funding request to “design and execute downtown recovery activation to fully leverage the reconstruction and reopening of the 16th Street Mall” at its Jan. 2 meeting.

Meanwhile, the Regional Transportation District, metro Denver’s public transit authority, offers transportation service to the are by serving approximately 40,000 people a day. But the free shuttles currently run along 15th and 17th, pulling people away from the mall. 

Some businesses said they fear the current pedestrian traffic won’t sustain them during the construction, a three-phase process in 12 segments of the corridor. 

“There are so many empty buildings,” said Mark Kline, co-owner at Appaloosa Grill, describing them as an “eyesore.”

Nighttime business is good for Kline, but lunchtime is much slower, he said.

“We made it through COVID, I think we can make it through construction,” Kline said.

Sun Kim, a manager at Simply Colorado gift shop in the heart of 16th Street Mall, told The Denver Gazette the city did not inform the business of construction until fences went up five feet in front of her store.

“Business is very, very bad,” Kim said. “Last year was very good. Now, we are worried about struggling.”

The gift shop manager said the business does its best when the Colorado Convention Center host events.

Upon finding out about the construction delays, Kim said, “I don’t know what will happen next year.”