Your Daily Guide

🥊 Battle for the Block

A fight over the future of the Holly, the Park Hill shopping center near East 33rd Avenue and Holly Street, has pitted new co-owner Ty Allen against tenants Dawn Owens and Rhonda Banks. Allen wants to replace the recently shuttered Horizon bar with a community bank, an ice cream parlor, a veterinary clinic and a boutique grocery store, while Owens and Banks want to preserve the bar and reopen it as “Shenanigans,” a new gathering space with food from Blazing Chicken Shack next door. The two visions have escalated through contested leases, a stop work order, competing funding proposals and threats of legal action. [Denverite]

• Why the block matters: Built in the early 1950s, The Holly became the commercial and cultural heart of Northeast Park Hill’s growing Black community. Generations of residents remember The Holly and the nearby recreation center as anchors of neighborhood life. [Westword]
• What is the dispute: Allen and his tenants are fighting over long-term leases for the Horizon and Blazing Chicken Shack. Owens and Banks signed their new leases with The Holly’s longtime owner Deloris Wilson after Allen bought into The Holly, but they back-dated the agreements to before Allen’s ownership stake was recorded. Allen says the leases are invalid because he didn’t sign them as co-owner, while Owens says they were executed with Wilson’s authority. [Denverite]
• The community’s concern: At a recent “Save The Holly” meeting, residents and business owners said they fear the block could be demolished, redeveloped and stripped of its Black-owned businesses. Allen denies that characterization and says his revised proposal is focused primarily on improving the existing property. [Denverite]
• The money: The Denver Urban Renewal Authority has more than $8 million designated for revitalization across Northeast Park Hill, with more than $1 million potentially available for the shopping center. But DURA says it will not award the funding for the property until the lease dispute is resolved [Denverite]

‼️ Boebert Rejects Salacious New Ethics Complaint

Liberal activist David Wheeler, who operates American Muckrakers PAC, submitted a complaint to the U.S. House Ethics Committee on Sept. 17 alleging that Rep. Lauren Boebert (CO-04) had inappropriate sexual relationships with three members of her staff and facilitated a $200,000 payment to one of the staffers to “secure her silence.” After the complaint was picked up in the tabloids last weekend, Boebert, who is running for re-election this November, rejected the allegations as a “politically motivated stunt designed to … smear her and generate clickbait.” [Colorado Times Recorder]

• Wheeler and Boebert have beefed before: After Boebert denied Wheeler’s 2022 allegation that she was once a sex worker and threatened to sue his donors, he sued her for defamation, citing a 92% drop in donations to his PAC (Wheeler and Boebert ultimately settled out of court). You can hear the whole backstory in this episode of our limited-run series on Boebert from 2024 [Colorado Newsline; City Cast Denver 🎧]

📸 New Surveillance at Aurora High Schools

In partnership with Cherry Creek Schools and Aurora Public Schools, the Aurora Police Department installed Flock Safety cameras in the parking lots outside nine high schools last year. Cherry Creek Schools administrators later removed the cameras outside their district’s schools amid the national outcry over Flock, but cameras remain outside five APS high schools despite increasing complaints from student advocates. [Denver Post 🔒]

• Aurora police say the cameras increase safety and provide evidence for ongoing investigations, including the arrest of a 14-year-old who allegedly shot and injured a man at Sand Creek Park on Sept. 1. [Denver Post 🔒]

👟 Is the ‘5280 Trail’ Finally Happening?

A Denver City Council committee last week advanced an $11.4 million contract with Sema Construction for new pedestrian-friendly landscaping and lighting on Acoma Street between 10th and 12th avenues. The two-block stretch is part of the proposed route for the 5280 Trail, a long-discussed but never fully funded plan to build a walking and biking route encircling downtown Denver. Construction on Acoma is expected to begin in October and last 18 months. [Axios Denver]

🤖 Anti-Data Center Rage Boils Over in Colorado Springs

A public hearing in Colorado Springs about “Project Taurus,” a proposed data center near Garden of the Gods, got particularly heated last Thursday, with police taking three people who had shown up to speak into custody. Colorado Springs City Council ultimately delayed their decision on the project, saying they wanted more time to understand noise and energy issues. They scheduled the next vote on Project Taurus for April 13, 2027, after Colorado Springs’ next municipal election. [Colorado Newsline; CPR]

• Who still wants data centers in Colorado? The Weld County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously earlier this month to approve a proposal from Global AI to build what could become the biggest data center in the state. [Colorado Newsline]
• But that’s not all: The Daily Camera rounded up the latest on the data center debates happening in more than a dozen other local municipalities. [Boulder Daily Camera 🔒]