Denverites might get a kick out of the city’s latest effort to activate downtown. On Tuesday, city leaders and their partners cut the ribbon on two new soccer arenas at Skyline Park.
“This is just the beginning of what's coming to downtown Denver that's going to be awesome and exciting,” Jolon Clark, head of Denver Parks and Recreation, shouted to a crowd of kids waiting to play after the opening ceremony.
The project is part of an overall revamp for the three-block greenspace, which sits in the shadow of the Daniels and Fisher clocktower. But officials were clear that the new play space aims to achieve even larger goals.
Denver’s urban core has stagnated for years, thanks to COVID lockdowns and prohibitive construction on 16th Street. City leaders, especially Mayor Mike Johnston, have been working to prove that the area is safe and attractive enough for businesses to reinvest in its vacant storefronts and struggling commercial highrises.
“You get a glimpse of the future here,” Clark said, “these public spaces that strengthen downtown as neighborhoods, but also as meeting the recreational needs of all those who live downtown, work downtown, or go to school downtown!”
The soccer fields were a gift from a collection of big sponsors.
Plans for new activation at Skyline Park go back almost a decade, to Denver’s Outdoor Downtown plan, Clark said. The document calls for spaces that encourage recreation and connection
But early plans for Skyline’s southernmost Block 1, at Arapahoe and 15th Streets, didn’t feature soccer fields. Some sketches included an “event lawn,” a stage and landscaping.
Less than a year ago, Clark told us it might hold downtown’s annual ice skating rink, since construction beginning this autumn will prevent it from opening on its usual block across 16th Street.
Sometime in the last six months, he said, the Downtown Denver Partnership (DDP) approached Parks and Rec with the soccer field idea. DDP had already been talking with the Colorado Rapids, who were looking for a place to set up a public play area.
Caitlin Kinser, an executive with the team, said the Rapids spent “a very, very long time” looking for real estate and sponsors to create something like this, which could be an “anchor for community programming and outreach.” It was especially important to get done ahead of the World Cup, which will be hosted in North America next year.
The team had already connected with Street Soccer USA, a nonprofit that gives underserved kids access to fields and equipment, which would manage the space and handle programming.
“When the Downtown Denver Partnership introduced us to Street Soccer USA,” Clark said, “we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a perfect thing.’”
Because Visa, Bank of America, UNIQLO and the A.R. Scripps Foundation helped finance the space, Clark said the city only had to pay to scrape the lot before construction began on the two arenas.
He said they should remain open through next year, at least. After that, the city will have to decide if it’s worth more investment to make them more permanent.
Lawrence Cann, founder and CEO of Street Soccer USA, said Skyline Park’s fields join 26 other projects across the country.
The kids were stoked for soccer, a good sign for officials’s larger goals.
They cheered as officials and sponsors took turns speaking during the event.
“Obviously, this is the most Denver thing you're going to do all week, because it is exactly what we want this city to feel like,” Mayor Johnston told them.
They ran onto the pitch once the talking was finished and a ribbon had been cut. Johnston joined them, juggling the ball as kids rushed around him.
Soccer, the mayor said, is a fitting symbol for his vision of Denver. He spent much of the last year drumming up public support for a new stadium to house the city’s incoming pro women’s soccer team.
“We do love it, being a soccer city. It's such a fantastic, inclusive sport. You get folks from so many communities and cultures who love it, but it's also such an easy sport to play,” he said.
Johnston said that easy access should create a ripple effect for the rest of the area, especially 16th Street, which he’s hoping will drive tax revenue as city finances slump.
“You can be someone working in an office building in downtown and want a little bit of exercise at lunch, and you can come out here and play,” he said. “You can be someone who's like, ‘You know what? I'll come at five o'clock. We'll do a three-on-three game, then we'll go for a beer.’ That is also part of the plan.”
It also dovetails with another effort to “activate” spaces where Johnston’s administration has cleared out encampments in the last few years, hoping crowds of people shopping, eating and drinking will prevent tents from reappearing.
Downtown Denver Partnership CEO Kourtny Garrett said this space, aimed at young players, will be a strong message that the corridor has entered a new era.
“The activity, and reinforcing that downtown is a place that is safe, active, and accessible to all,” she said, “will reinforce everything for the public coming back to downtown to our businesses.”
