Bringing life to the heart of the city
Denver’s 16th Street is a mile-long main street and transit corridor in the city’s historic downtown core. Prior to the pandemic, it regressed into a place needing constant maintenance and repairs, with safety concerns and an underperforming retail environment.
Since the pandemic, Denver’s downtown has been in a moment of total reinvention. As retail continues to get back on its feet, businesses react to new rhythms of working, and commercial office space is converted into new residential units, Downtown Denver is transforming from a central business district into a central neighborhood district. The City needed its prime commercial corridor to support this transformation, and to be a true gathering place for a changing neighborhood.
The City and County of Denver and the Downtown Denver Partnership (DDP) first hired Gehl for the ongoing evaluation of the ‘Meet in the Street’ (MITS) events from 2014-2016. This program curated major events on 16th Street, temporarily transforming the street from a place just to go through into a
place worth going to. Based on Gehl’s evaluative report published in 2015, Denver extended MITS to be held over an additional five weekends with more events which ran to 2017. Gehl assisted in running the prototyping festival and measuring its impacts. This program, spearheaded by Gehl’s vision, revealed 16th Street’s latent potential to become a true gathering place for Denver.
In accordance with Gehl’s initial design guidance outlined from the MITS work, the City began construction on 16th Street to better accommodate pedestrians and provide more ample space for public life. With construction completed in October 2025, foot traffic has returned to pre-pandemic peaks.
Since 2014, Gehl has been working for the City and County of Denver and the Downtown Denver Partnership to create an actionable solution for this street, with services spanning public life and space evaluations, piloting tactical urban transformations, managing client alignment, crafting the design vision, and cementing operational guidance post-occupancy.
