[CPEO-BIF] Denver, Colorado's Osage Mercado

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

[To download a formatted 1 MB .DOC version of this report with photos, 
click on http://www.cpeo.org/pubs/OsageMercado.doc.]

Denver's Osage Mercado
A Community Vision for a Transit-Oriented Brownfields Development
Lenny Siegel
May, 2007

On April 12, 2007 I visited the 10th and Osage Street Revitalization 
site in western Denver. The Mercado Coalition, which includes some of 
the same activists who have united to influence the Gates Rubber 
Development (see http://www.cpeo.org/pubs/GatesCPEO.doc), has proposed a 
mixed-use development on public land adjacent to the 10th and Osage 
light rail station. Instead of bargaining for community benefits at a 
developer-led site, they are pursuing a community-initiated vision. This 
is the type of community-led development that activists throughout the 
country have been proposing since they become aware of the brownfields 
paradigm a dozen years ago.
The 10th and Osage site consists of two parcels, totaling three acres of 
land on Osage Street, on either side of the 10th and Osage Station. It's 
just south of downtown Denver. Both parcels are largely vacant, though 
one is used for parking and storage and the other contains a large 
electrical transformer.  Historically, the site was a railyard. The City 
and County of Denver is in the processing of taking ownership from the 
Regional Transportation District, operator of the light rail system.
Site sampling indicates unacceptable levels of arsenic and semivolatile 
organic compounds in surficial soils, presumably deposited over the 
years of railroad operations. The City and County of Denver has 
developed a plan, under Colorado's Voluntary Clean-Up Program, to 
excavate the contaminated soil and replace it with clean fill. Sampling 
shows no groundwater issues at the site.
Denver's Office of Economic Development is seeking a $200,000 
Brownfields Cleanup grant from EPA to prepare the property for reuse by 
remediating it to residential (unrestricted) standards. It plans to 
invest about $240,000 of its own money in the project, too. Cleanup will 
not only promote redevelopment; but it will eliminate a visual blight 
and a festering threat to public health.
The 10th and Osage site is located in Denver's La Alma/Lincoln Park 
neighborhood. Most of the area is more than 80% minority, with family 
incomes less than half that for Denver as a whole. An unusually large 
number of households are headed by single mothers. Public housing 
projects are adjacent to the development site.
Located at the first transit stop from downtown, this is an ideal site 
for a transit-oriented development. The official 2006 Transit Oriented 
Development Strategic Plan calls for such properties to be redeveloped 
as "beautiful, vital and walkable neighborhoods with housing, shopping 
and transportation choices that generate lasting value for citizens and 
public and private stakeholders." That is, it's an ideal site for 
"smart" urban renewal, but without steps designed to protect the 
interests of the surrounding neighborhood's existing residents, 
redevelopment would be a recipe for wholesale gentrification and 
displacement.
Twenty years ago, long before most people knew what transit-oriented 
development meant, La Alma/Lincoln Park residents envisioned a permanent 
cultural market within the neighborhood. In 2002, when the Regional 
Transportation District asked the community what should be done with the 
vacant parcels it owns, residents resurrected the marketplace vision. 
The invited nearby community organizations, foundations, and others to 
form the Mercado Coalition, and they began researching models for the 
"Osage Mercado" on the revitalization site.
According to the Coalition's brochure, "The ultimate goal of the Mercado 
Coalition is to create a year-round market district that will encourage 
business entrepreneurs from low-income families, increase regional 
economic opportunity, create a neighborhood focal point, and foster 
cultural and social understanding.... Our vision crystallized as a 
year-round indoor market that will incubate business entrepreneurs from 
low-income families, increase economic opportunities, create a 
neighborhood focal point, and foster cultural and social understanding."
To refine that goal and build community support, the Coalition has 
staged periodic outdoor markets in warm weather, including cultural 
celebrations. But the Mercado vision calls for indoor facilities for 
year-round operation, and permanent facilities to enable "work-sell" 
operations. It explains, "A 'work-sell' environment assembles community 
tradesmen, cooks, artists, craftsmen, teachers, and technology to 
deliver locally manufactured products to any potential customer." Plans 
also call for the development of mixed-income housing above some of the 
marketplace space, and the coalition hopes the Mercado will serve as a 
cornerstone of neighborhood-wide revitalization that will benefit 
existing residents.
Both the Office of Economic Development and the Regional Transportation 
District appear to have endorsed the Coalition's plan. In fact, the 
city/county included a letter from the Mercado Coalition in its grant 
application to EPA. But Coalition leaders are nervous, not because any 
officials have questioned the community-developed plan, but because the 
property is extremely valuable. A market-oriented development could 
conceivably generate significantly greater tax revenues, at the expense 
of foregoing the benefits to the current neighbors.
During my visit, I explained to Coalition leaders that the city/county's 
promise of community involvement, in its proposal to EPA, was binding. 
The city/county wrote that it "is committed to collaborating with 
neighborhood stakeholders to ensure that the transit oriented 
development at 10th and Osage meets the needs or the neighborhood."  I 
pointed out two other cities where EPA withdrew, or threatened to 
withdraw, its brownfields financial support from cities that had 
promised to work closely with affected residents, but had not carried 
through.
I am optimistic, therefore, that the Osage Mercado will become a reality 
in the not-to-distant future, creating new economic, residential, and 
cultural opportunities for the residents of West Denver and establishing 
a national model for community-led brownfields development.

--


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org


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