“Civil service statutes establish a floor for police officer employment protections, which the unions can raise through collective bargaining.”
by Robert Davis
Imagine working in an office with 1,000 coworkers. Once every five days, you get a memo saying a coworker was accused of misconduct. One day you see a video from one incident — a coworker shooting someone in the back. You ask the coworker about it and they say the other person had a gun and they feared for their life. With those magic words, you know the shooting will be justified by the company, almost no matter what the video showed.
Backup: Denver Police Department called in 12 local agencies for backup amid protests.
Anywhere else and this would be unthinkable. For the Director of Denver’s public safety department Murphy Robinson and Police Chief Paul Pazen, this office is familiar. And it’s the storied history of the office that prevents police reform activists and police officers from reforming the mountain of legal protections afforded to police officers accused of misconduct.
Why? Because the city’s civil service laws were designed with a job description in mind. In turn, Denver’s police union — Denver Police Protective Association (DPPA) — learned how to coil its collective bargaining agreement around those laws to protect officer misconduct. And until this job description is reimagined, longstanding police misconduct reform seems ill-fated.
Director of Public Safety Murphy Robinson broached the topic with city council in June during a discussion on reforming DPD’s use of force policy. As a self-proclaimed student of history acknowledged that moving on from his department’s storied history is necessary to institute immediate reforms.
“We are at a place where we need to move the needle forward,” Robinson said.
His words rang hollow to protesters in attendance like Brian Hostraw, who witnessed police officers tear-gassing small children without warning, firing pepper balls and rubber bullets indiscriminately, and destroying the property of homeless individuals with impunity during the George Floyd protests.
“These are not the actions of people I trust to protect me or my family,” Hostraw said.
And there are plenty of police officers who side with Hostraw. Chief Pazen told lawmakers that a majority of his officers agree with the increased scrutiny placed on them by SB217.
But, the one reform activists are demanding most loudly in the wake of the George Floyd protests — easing the ability of police chiefs to fire officers for misconduct — is the most difficult policy to reform.
Denver began crafting legal protections for its police officers when the first settlements along Cherry Creek were staked out in 1858. Territorial governor John C. Moore organized the Rocky Mountain Rangers under a vigilante mandate to protect the miners from the prostitutes, gamblers, and thieves that followed them west. By the time the City & County was chartered in 1904, police officers were influential players in state sponsored corruption, and earned legal protections because of it.
Before being elected mayor, Robert Speer was a veteran member of the Police and Fire Board, which oversaw a diverse range of city operations from peace officer certification to public censorship. As such, he knew how to use Denver’s finest to serve his political ends and was willing to do so.
During his first two terms, Denver’s finest engaged in voter suppression, rigging elections, and shakedowns of casinos, brothels, and saloons. Speer’s motivation was obviously political — his administration of tolerated vice and honest corruption relied on an invisible hand used to ward off Speer’s competitors. Over time, Speer rewarded Denver’s finest with employment protections that unions would later use to thwart cases of police misconduct.
Clash With Police: Demonstrators clash with police at the Colorado Capitol on Saturday, May 30, 2020, during the third day of protests in Denver in response to George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minnesota. Photo Credit: (Joe Mahoney, Special to The Colorado Sun)
Realizing how important Denver’s finest were to his political success, Speer created the Civil Service Commission (CSC) during his third tour in office in 1916. The commission established a costly disciplinary and disqualification review processes that often incentivizes public officials to look the other way at police misconduct rather than pursue a moral victory of terminating a rotten officer.
Stephen Rushin, assistant law professor at Loyola University — Chicago, argued in his 2017 article in Duke Law Journal that police union contracts use civil service laws like a double-edge sword. First, they “establish a floor for police officer employment protections, which police unions can raise through collective bargaining.” Second, they tilt the political scales in favor of the unions during negotiations.
Employment protections are established through case law, which often results in costly legal bills for the city. In Denver, city representatives must present their entire case to officers accused of misconduct before the officer decides whether to fight it in arbitration. If arbitration returns an unfavorable result, the case is appealed through the courts, where it hopes to find a judge who will accept an assertion of qualified immunity.
Judge Carlton Reeves of the Southern District of Missouri described qualified immunity as “manufactured fiction” that has had a damning influence on how courts handle cases involving police officers in his decision in Jamison v. McClendon.
He cited a decision from the Fifth Circuit Court where qualified immunity was successfully asserted by corrections officers who were accused of keeping an inmate in a jail cell covered in fecal matter for a weekend before transferring the inmate to a cell in solitary confinement that didn’t have a working toilet or sink.
The Court’s reasoning? Qualified immunity can be asserted in cases where a law is not clearly established. In terms of the case from the Fifth Circuit, the court reasoned the timeframe in which the inmate was kept in unsanitary conditions was unsettled and, therefore, qualified immunity could be asserted.
Judge Reeves specifically addressed this logical quagmire in his opinion, stating “it is a fool’s errand to ask people who love debating whether something is debatable.”
University of Virginia law professor Rachel Harmon observed in her article The Problem of Policing in the Michigan Law Review that civil service laws empower frontline police officers “to challenge any internal managerial action that affects them on both substantive and procedural grounds in a formal adversarial process.”
In May, Denver paid $1 million to settle a case against two police officers who were terminated in 2013 after they lied about assaulting two club-goers in downtown four years earlier. Over the past three years, the city has coughed up over $14.5 million to settle cases involving officer misconduct, according to an investigation by The Denver Post.
Moral Hazard
Because of the cost of disciplining police officers, departments where misconduct is rampant are thus incentivized to withhold information unless an incident rises to a level warranting action. Whistleblower Brittany Iriart revealed in June that DPD, in fact, alters information on its internal misconduct reports to protect its officers before she was fired for violating the confidentiality clause of her employment contract.
DPD: Denver Officers clear a man who fell to the street after they used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd of protestors on May 28, 2020.
Politically, Rushin says, because municipal expenditures such as court settlements can dominate local headlines, the result for lawmakers is a moral hazard. On one hand, they are tasked to upholding the law, yet rely on a third party who is prone to turning the other cheek to prosecute miscreant police officers.
“Municipal leaders may be incentivized to offer concessions on police disciplinary procedures because they are less likely to bear the costs of those concessions in the immediate future,” he wrote.
This issue is further complicated by the political activities of DPPA and its members individually. Since 2012, DPPA has donated over $200,000 to city council candidates, according to the city’s campaign finance data. Over the same time frame, more police officers reported donating to Mayor Michael Hancock than any other candidate for office.
Likewise Denver’s statewide union, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #27, contributes to General Assembly candidates as in local District Attorneys races.
In her Iowa Law Review article titled Who Shouldn’t Prosecute the Police, law professor Kate Levine argues that a “structural conflict of interest arises when local prosecutors are given the discretion and responsibility to investigate and lead cases against the police,” because “prosecutors rely heavily on the police for their success.”
Levine acknowledges that no criminal case would exist without first contact from a police officer and officers can create and control facts by collecting evidence from the crime scene, interviewing witnesses, or through undercover work, all of which prosecutors can admit in court.
But, the relationship between prosecutor and officer doesn’t end when a case is closed.
DA’s need campaign donations to be elected to office. Then, they rely on police officer conduct to determine negotiating leverage during grand jury cases. The Department of Justice estimates approximately 90 percent of prosecutions end with a plea bargain.
“While cases of police brutality are unlikely to go completely unnoticed, issues of “testifying” by the police, as well as evidence planting, tampering, or withholding, and illegal intimidation tactics will never emerge unless another officer or a prosecutor addresses them,” Levine wrote.
Meanwhile, even though DPPA is a public-sector union, its negotiations with city council are kept confidential. This puts councilmembers at a political disadvantage by keeping them from crowd-sourcing reform ideas from their districts.
Councilmembers also cannot negotiate with union representatives. Instead, they must negotiate through an intermediary. This year it is Legislative Services Director Linda Jamison. Denverite reported that Jamison was not invited to the meetings until three weeks after they began.
Police unions also create leverage vicariously through local news reports on crime rates. Crime statistics from DPD show that violent crime and property crime were all higher in the previous five negotiation years. Last year’s annual report by the Office of the Independent Monitor confirmed officer complaints were higher in these years as well.
Denver City Councilmember Candi CdeBaca, District 9
According to a statement by District 9 Denver City Councilperson Candi CdeBaca, the current CBA negotiations include a measure protecting police officers from furloughs as Denver faces a budget crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and a two-percent salary increase.
Meanwhile, other government employees covered by career service mandates may be subject to budget-required furloughs. Currently, city projections estimate it will suffer a $226 million shortfall, of which $10 million will come out of DPD’s budget.
“This contract amounts to a uniquely beneficial agreement for DPD in the midst of hundreds of excessive use of force investigations and against a background of nationwide calls for police accountability and transparency,” CdeBaca said.
Violent crime is up 11 percent this year compared to last, according to city data.
Why Reform Hasn’t Worked (Yet)
Police reform activists currently can’t decide whether they advocate for completely tearing down the Denver Police Department or reimagining the role of police officers as a community support role, and this impasse is hindering their overall goal of easing restrictions and procedures for firing police officers for misconduct.
In August, Councilperson CdeBaca introduced legislation to abolish DPD and replace it with a peacekeeping department, a policy she claimed on social media was supported by thousands of Denverites.
Mayor Hancock called the legislation “reckless and irresponsible” in a statement shortly after it was introduced.
“The Councilwoman should exercise greater transparency and public accountability before putting something of this magnitude forward for a vote again instead of springing it on the public. I firmly stand by the men and women of our Police Department and will continue to hold accountable those who step over the line when dealing with the public,” he said.
The proposal lost at the Council level with only CdeBaca supporting it.
Others taking a community-centric approach include the newest appointee to the Citizen Oversight Board (COB), which oversees the body responsible for officer investigations, forensic psychologist Dr. Apryl Alexander.
As an academic, Alexander hopes to use her background to help forge new ways of thinking about community policing that doesn’t include excessive force, but includes accountability and restorative practices.
“People are looking for change in this moment,” she told Colorado Politics.
“I am still making order out of chaos by reinvention.”
— John le Carre
by Luke Schmaltz
Jeff Bezos’ Amazon has prospered greatly from the Covid-19 shutdown along with McDonald’s, Walmart, Target, and many other wealthy Fortune 500 corporations.. Conversely, many of the most unfortunate economic casualties of the Covid-19 shutdown are small businesses — a staggering percentage of which will not recover. Among these, many of the hardest hit are family-owned food and beverage establishments and independent retailers.
Currently, the nation’s financial spine appears to be either broken or at the very least severely out of alignment. Unfortunately, the middle class can’t just go hobbling down to the economic chiropractor and get its mangled column of vertebrae snapped back into place. Rather, the health of each small yet crucial section is going to have to be nurtured back to solvency one joint at a time.
Jeff Bezos
A Personality Crisis
Doing this is going to require innovation, experimentation, and the willingness to abandon some elements of the old fiscal paradigm. The Washington Post recently reported that over 100,000 small businesses have closed down permanently due to the Coronavirus fallout, and more are expected. This year’s decimation of small business has created a massive void in the marketplace as a whole. The character and warmth of family-owned and operated businesses that are no longer there has left consumers with an ever-dwindling set of bland, prefabricated cookie-cutter options. As most folks with even a fraction of personality will agree — that will not do.
The independent entrepreneurial spirit is strong in many Americans, and some would rather work for themselves 80 hours a week than clock in and out of a regular job and toe the line to the corporate status quo. Independent mom and pop businesses can and will etch their place in the economic landscape once again. If you are willing to step out onto shaky ground, there are a few takeaways from the current crisis you can arm yourself with so that the next stay-at-home order will not mean curtains for your piece of the American Dream.
Brass Tacks Of Business
Boarded Up: Bracing boards on windows does not brace the backbone of the economy.
Retail shops and dine-in restaurants carry the always present, ever-increasing burdens of rent, insurance, property tax, loan payments, utility bills and on and on. Before dollar one can be considered profit, these costs must be met. If your passion is preparing delicious food or supplying people with items they need, consider operating from modest digs for starters or better yet, skip the storefront altogether and set up shop from home. Rather than wait for random foot traffic to wander through the door, you might consider marketing to your immediate community and perhaps to an extended clientele within reasonable, deliverable radius. Plus, if your business is non-perishable goods, there’s always the good ol’ United States Postal Service.
Interact With Your Neighbors
Neighbors: Communities are built on relationships between neighbors.
By creating commerce and delivering value to your community, you are playing an important role in bolstering your small section of the backbone. In this scenario, your neighbors and fellow Denverites are your clientele, and developing relationships with them is crucial to your success. For this to happen, however, there must be a general consensus that fast food and big box stores are not the only options when it comes to enjoying professionally prepared meals and purchasing clothes, accessories and gifts. With the unfortunate dwindling of mom and pop places to frequent, people are eventually going to get sick of unhealthy fast food, generic products and soulless interaction. This newly-emerging niche is where small, home-based and low-overhead businesses owners can step in and make a living — and perhaps a difference in their community.
Reach Out In Old And New Ways
Spread the word about your products and services by talking to people in your immediate community. If the quality you present is on par with your passion for your business — those you serve will almost certainly tell their family, friends and neighbors about you. Also, the internet, despite its flaws, is still a powerful tool for doing business — perhaps now more than ever. You can cheaply and effectively build and maintain a clientele via internet marketing — specifically by email. You will need a basic website, an on-page email capture feature and an email management service. All can be acquired and maintained for a few dollars a month. The scope of this article is not broad enough to go into all of the nuts and bolts of this, but please know that for the curious, there are volumes of free information available about every facet of online marketing.
Subvert The Supply Chain
Locally sourcing raw materials is an essential component of a community-focused, small business resurgence. Large agricultural distributors are in the same category as fast food chains and corporate retailers. They are only concerned with numbers and have no contingency in their business plans for building and sustaining communities. On the other hand, according to farm flavor.com, there are 36,180 farms and 156 farmers markets in the state of Colorado. Plus, delivery services such as Grub Hub, Door Dash and Uber Eats are available to deliver just about anything edible you may produce to your local customers. As the locally-sourced, delivered inventory model grows, so too will regional services designed to meet that demand. Currently, Coloradofreshproduce.com and Farmtoforkcolorado.com are serving the entire Denver metro area and surrounding suburbs.
While some of what is presented here is speculative, the fundamentals of what make small businesses volatile are definite: high overhead, a disconnect with the community and outdated marketing strategies. What makes them invaluable, however, is that they are run by human beings who share the same aspirations, concerns and neighborhood as you.
United States Rugby Foundation has recognized Glendale Mayor Mike Dunafon with its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award to be presented to the mayor August 2020.
Lifetime Achievement: Glendale Mayor Mike Dunafon is receiving the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from United States Rugby Foundation in August 2020. He is shown here in Chile back in 2001 while he served as Manager of the United States U-19 National Team.
Dunafon was a football, rather than a rugby standout, in his youth. He was a star running back at Golden High School and then played at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) where he played H-back and wide receiver. Many of Dunafon’s receiving records are still intact at UNC. He was signed on as a wide receiver by the Denver Broncos in 1976, but injuries curtailed his professional career.
In 1978 he traveled down to the Caribbean island Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands, where he was introduced to one of the islands’ favorite sports — rugby and he fell in love with the game’s continuous play and the camaraderie between players and teams.
Dunafon has stated that: “Rugby has had an incredible impact on my life; it’s an extended family that welcomed me instantly as I took to the pitch for the first time and it has since instilled in me an inherent respect and acceptance for people.” He went on to note, “I knew that if I could share that experience with my community, we could create something truly extraordinary that exceeds the bounds of race, religion, sex and economic standing.”
Island Paradise: Mike Dunafon, pictured here in a promotion for Village Cay Marina in the Caribbean island Tortola in 1978, the year he was introduced to the sport of rugby.
He played for British Virgin Islands RFC until 1992 when he moved back to Colorado. He also has a USA Rugby Level 3 coaching certification. From 2000 to 2001, he was the Manager of the United States U-19 National Team, taking them on three international tours to Australia, a World Cup Qualifier in Trinidad, and the 2001 Junior World Cup in Chile.
“Rugby continues to be a big part of my life and has become part of the Glendale lexicon since Infinity Park was established in 2007,” says Dunafon. “I’m thrilled to be honored by the U.S. Rugby Foundation and look forward to the August award event.”
As the only municipally-owned, rugby-specific stadium in the United States, Infinity Park has hosted teams from all over the world. According to U.S. Rugby Foundation Executive Director Brian Vizard, Dunafon’s “biggest impact on rugby in America is the development of RugbyTown USA in Glendale, Colorado.”
On May 30, 2007, then Governor Bill Ritter officially proclaimed Glendale to be the “Rugby Capital of Colorado.”
Vizard went on to note: “As Mayor of Glendale, Mike’s vision was to revitalize a community by embracing the ethos that he saw in rugby — the camaraderie, sportsmanship, and commitment to community. Infinity Park is widely considered to be the finest rugby training facility in the country. I have seen the growth of RugbyTown over the years and am truly amazed by what Mike and the City of Glendale have been able to accomplish.”
Adds Vizard, “We look forward to . . . recognizing Mike with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his over 40 years of service to the sport.”
Glendale has various men’s, women’s and under 19 teams as well as junior programs for kids of all ages. The Glendale Raptors recently withdrew from Major League Rugby wanting to concentrate on developing top players for the national team known as the American Eagles. With regard to the same, USA Rugby has moved from Boulder to Glendale which should greatly assist such an effort.
Dunafon who was reelected for another four-year term as Mayor of Glendale in April 2020, indicated that: “Glendale’s role in the world of rugby will keep on growing. As much as we have achieved over the last decade it is just the beginning. We hope that every kid who plays rugby will want to someday visit and play in RugbyTown U.S.A.”
Although Storm Gloor is known around Glendale as a city councilman who enjoys running and spending time with his family, he is also an Associate Professor for the University of Colorado, Denver’s College of Arts & Media and a devoted music fan. He was involved in the music industry for 14 years and, more recently, has been conducting research and developing courses based on Music Cities topics. Unbeknownst to Gloor, Dr. Gigi Johnson, from UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music, was conducting similar research of her own.
Storm Gloor
“Five years ago I developed the first (from what I’ve been told) Music Cities course offered in higher education and Gigi developed Music Cities curricula more recently,” Gloor explains. “I led a Music Cities research project with my students for the city of Arvada and with Cheyenne, Wyoming. She led at least one with Los Angeles and has done some amazing things.”
Gloor and Johnson initially met at a Music Biz conference, became friends, and then realized that they were both doing related research at their respective schools.
“Our collaboration began with this project starting late last year,” says Gloor. “Gigi is awesome and when she suggested that we work together I jumped at the opportunity.”
When the two professors combined their efforts, they investigated 71 cities that had commissioned studies and analyzed each city’s music ecosystem. Their extensive research was accepted for presentation at this year’s South By Southwest — an annual gathering of film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences in Austin — where they were slated to discuss connecting ideas between groups of organizations. As Gloor and Johnson planned their conference and strategized topics to cover, they realized that people and organizations all over the world were doing similar work. So they introduced those people to one another and put them on panels together. And then COVID-19 changed the world and everything was canceled.
Amplify Music Emerges
In an effort to ensure that their message was still heard, Gloor and Johnson organized a virtual gathering of stakeholders in the music economy who would focus on how communities and their ecosystems would endure the world shifting and discuss the short- and long-term effects on the music industry. The virtual gathering — now known as Amplify Music 2020 — became a 25-hour session that took place on April 23 and 24 with a new mission: bring together diverse music leaders and creators to learn and share from local artists, venues, creative communities, and support networks to address the challenges of COVID-19.
Featuring over 100 speakers and 11 central themes, the virtual event centered on the immediate future of music and how to prepare for the industry’s “new normal.”
“I think the most significant outcome is that we brought so many folks together so quickly to collaborate, share, and put the information out there to educate and provide a resource for anyone in need,” Gloor explains. “Hopefully we’ve contributed to getting through this as best we can.”
Major themes Gloor and Johnson highlighted were resilience, community, and recovery. Because the music business has historically been forced to repeatedly adapt due to disruptions caused by ever-changing technology, Gloor feels that the industry will survive the current disruption as well.
“Commercial radio did not stop people from going to see live music, home taping did not kill music, and post-Napster music consumers pay for music despite the prediction that they never would again,” he says. “In every case the industry was resilient, albeit with forced changes to the economic models. And it will be again. Music is too important to so many of us.”
Gloor continues, “That being said, all of those previous disruptions have generally been due to changing technology. We’re messing with a human virus now. Science, health and medicine, psychology, sociology, and even politics are now involved. The business will recover, though it will be painful. And the solutions, over at least the next 18 months, will now have to be sought through those lenses as well.”
What’s Next
While this unprecedented crisis is affecting most industries across the world, Gloor is confident in the resilience of the music business but acknowledges that the landscape will be different. That insight is why the conference’s format transformed from various sessions over the course of a month to 25 consecutive hours of discussion.
“There’s no doubt this has been catastrophic for the industry, particularly the live music industry,” Gloor says. “It’s tragic irony because that’s the sector that was perhaps thriving the most. For many artists it had become their main source of revenue, since sales of recordings had diminished so much and streaming has generated only a fraction of what recordings did. By the same token, live music venues were thriving. Attendance records were broken, shows were selling out more often, jobs were being created, and new venues were opening or upgrading. And then COVID.”
Though looking ahead is difficult, as the music business has already experienced significant blows with live music cancelations and venues closing indefinitely, Gloor is already seeing industry people coming up with ways to make do.
He adds, “Many folks, on both the business side and the artist side, are quickly getting creative just to stay afloat and are definitely working together. That was clear from the conversations during the conference.”
For more information on Amplify Music, and to see video recordings of all the sessions, visit www.amplifymusic.org.
Glendale City Councilman Storm Gloor is also an Associate Professor at UCD’s College of Arts & Media.
Mayor Re-Elected: Mike Dunafon was re-elected as the Mayor of Glendale for a third term on April 7, 2020.
On April 7, 2020, Glendale held its municipal election. Glendale Mayor Michael Dunafon and four incumbent Councilmembers, Storm Gloor, Rachel Binkley, Ryan Tuchscherer and Lindsey Mintz were unopposed, and the only item was the approval of a City Charter change allowing the City Manager to live 10 miles from Glendale rather than five miles. The mayor and incumbent councilmembers did not apparently take their re-election for granted. Each one gathered hundreds of signatures to get on the ballot. With only the Charter change to consider and with the election in the middle of the pandemic there were only 16 citizens casting votes with the Charter change being approved 14 to 2.
After several years of changes and setbacks, the Glendale 180 project is moving forward with a new real estate developer and a new timeline. Lincoln Property Company, a Dallas-based international real estate firm, is slated to break ground on the 268,000 square-foot mixed-used development in December 2020. An experiential retail, entertainment, hotel, and office destination, Glendale 180 will be the largest cohesive entertainment district in Colorado. It will also be among the first in the state to offer an open container law that allows for the common consumption of alcoholic beverages throughout the development. Further setting the project apart, Glendale 180 is expected to be the only entertainment district in Colorado where tenants have the ability to remain open until 4 a.m.
“The combination of Glendale’s central location and its reputation as a commercial-driven municipality makes Glendale 180 a desirable destination for the region’s growing population and businesses alike,” says Lincoln Property Company Vice President Hunter Brous. “We’re grateful to the City of Glendale for their partnership throughout this process and are eager to activate this new district with retail, dining, and entertainment experiences that are next to none.”
Founded in 1965, Lincoln Property Company is considered one of the most respected and diversified service firms in the United States. A key reason behind the City of Glendale’s decision to select the company for the Glendale 180 project was the firm’s experience with developing The Star, near Dallas, Texas, that is home to an entertainment district and the Dallas Cowboys’ headquarters and training facility.
“After visiting The Star, it was clear that Lincoln Property Company understood the sports/entertainment connection and would capitalize on the relationship between Infinity Park and Glendale 180,” says Glendale City Manager Linda Cassaday.
Experience Glendale
Featuring over 21,000 square feet of office space, over 134,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, a 160-key hotel, and a 43,000-square-foot movie theater, Glendale 180 will also include free structured parking, an outdoor climbing wall, and a central outdoor plaza designed to support year-round programming.
“With Glendale 180 we are creating an experience and a gathering place,” Cassaday explains. “Major holidays will be celebrated there and people can look forward to food fairs, festivals, concerts, and fitness events. In short, we are creating a new downtown Glendale with this project.”
Bordered by Virginia Avenue to the north, Cherry Creek South Drive to the south, and Cherry Street to the east, Glendale 180’s dynamic, pedestrian-friendly design includes direct access to the Cherry Creek trail. Glendale Deputy City Manager Chuck Line says that a path will be developed to accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists, and that the green space will become an integral part of the project as a whole.
New Tenants
For those wondering why Glendale 180 has taken so long to come to fruition, Cassaday says that the City of Glendale was waiting for the right developer who really understood what the project was all about. Line adds, “The City could have sold the property to a big box store but we chose not to do that because it wasn’t going to serve Glendale well. Instead, we held out for an entertainment district and we are glad we did.”
As for the retail tenants, two have signed on so far: Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has leased 43,000 square feet and Food Hall by Hospitality Alliance has leased 25,000 square feet, including 10,000 square feet of patio space, for their first Colorado location.
Boasting the “best cinematic experience in the world,” Alamo Drafthouse celebrates cinema by pairing their movie-going experience with quality food and drinks. Each location is fitted with multiple types of projection equipment to accommodate both new and classic films. They show a variety of movies and the menu features burgers, pizzas, salads, snacks, and desserts prepared fresh from locally sourced ingredients. Additionally, every Alamo Drafthouse location highlights and promotes the best local craft breweries.
With offices in Las Vegas, New York, and Dallas, Hospitality Alliance is a consultancy and management group comprised of experts in different areas of the hotel and food and beverage industry. They are responsible for the Plaza Hotel Food Hall in New York City and the Discovery District redevelopment of AT&T’s new headquarters in downtown Dallas. The company also assists with concept development, leasing, construction project management, hiring, and training.
Vintage Glendale
While the experiential entertainment district is new in many ways, in other ways it’s bringing Glendale back to its roots. During the 1960s and 1970s, the city was home to a variety of now vintage establishments that attracted the masses. Colorado Mine Company (home of the “Fool’s Gold” which was Elvis’ favorite sandwich), Cork ‘N Cleaver, Celebrity Sports Center (owned by Disney), Cooper Theater, The Riviera (The Riv), Soda Straw, Sportspage, The Lift, and Tommy Wong’s Island are long gone but fondly remembered. Additionally, Andy’s Smorgasbord became Shotgun Willie’s Country Western Bar which is now Shotgun Willie’s Show Club and, almost five decades later, Bull and Bush Pub and Brewery is still a favorite.
“With this project, Glendale will regain its position as the premier entertainment hub of the metro area and we’re confident that we’ve found the right partner in Lincoln Property Company to turn that vision into a reality,” says Glendale Mayor Mike Dunafon. “From an exciting retail tenant mix and a central location to unprecedented trail access and more, Glendale 180 will usher in Colorado’s next generation of entertainment-based experiences.”
