DENVER - The Colorado Creative Industries office announced today the latest six recipients of the Community Revitalization Grant program.
Established by SB21-252, the Colorado Community Revitalization Grant provides gap funding for projects in creative districts, historic districts, main streets or neighborhood commercial centers. These grants will support creative projects that combine creative industry workforce housing, commercial spaces, performance space, community gathering spaces, child care centers, and retail partnerships for the purpose of economic recovery and diversification by supporting creative sector entrepreneurs, artisans, and community non-profit organizations.
"We're delighted to see the types of transformative projects across the state applying for these grants,” said Margaret Hunt, Director of Colorado Creative Industries. “The creative industries have always been a catalyst for economic development and we are seeing this through each of these funded projects.”
The six projects are:
Fox West Theater Rehabilitation
Trinidad, CO - $3.4 million
Trinidad is home to one of the most intact historic main streets in the country, of which Fox West Theatre (“the Theatre”) serves as the anchor. The Theatre is a contributing building in El Corazon de Trinidad National Register Historic District, listed in 1973. As the first city visitors to the state encounter when they enter from the south, Trinidad is considered a gateway to the State of Colorado. The Fox West Theatre stands at the entry point to the historic district and the state-certified creative district. Reactivating the retail spaces and rehabilitating the storefront façade and building exterior will beautify the street and allow the Theatre to serve once again as the crown jewel of the historic district. A revitalized Fox West Theatre will include three units of workforce housing and also provide a cultural anchor and community hub that will leverage, protect, and grow its investment.
Full Plate Management LLC or affiliated entity: Fuel & Iron Project
Pueblo, CO - $1 million
The Fuel & Iron Project is the redevelopment of the Holmes Hardware Block and the adjacent 2.5 acre site in the heart of Downtown Pueblo (at the intersection of Union Ave. and B Street). The first phase of the project, the renovation of the historic Holmes Hardware Block building, will consist of the Fuel & Iron Food Hall on the first floor and 28 affordable housing units on the second and third floors. The larger project site will have roughly an acre devoted to an urban farm, events space and performing arts space, and roughly a half acre dedicated to additional housing with a child care center in Phase II of the project. This project is in the heart of the Pueblo Arts Corridor, a state-certified creative district.
Chaffee Housing Authority: Jane's Place Project
Salida, CO - $1.3 million
Jane's Place is a unique, mixed-use development planned for a currently vacant half-acre lot located a half mile from downtown Salida. The development consists of four buildings that will deliver 17 rental housing units as well as a nonprofit co-working and social enterprise retail space. Jane's Place is a community-based, mixed-use development that will be located on the southwest corner of 3rd Street and Colorado Highway 291, in Salida, Colorado. This 17 unit rental housing project was locally designed with input from over 20 nonprofit organizations and area employers, and is intended to meet some of the unique housing needs in Chaffee County, including shorter-term leasing (3 months to 12 months) to accommodate seasonal employment opportunities, winter shelter for people living without housing, dedicated Human Services client units, a 5-bedroom unit for Americorp Vista volunteers and affordable rent calculated at no more than 30 percent of households income.
Salida Circus Outreach Foundation: Chaffee County Creativity Center
Salida, CO - $450,000
The Chaffee County Creativity Center (C4) will be home to six local businesses: Salida Circus, Colorado TINTS (theater in nontraditional spaces), Salida Music Streaming Studio, Forbidden Fruits Pies 1657, Salida Web Guy and the Chaffee County Martial Arts Collective.
The location of C4 is 605 Teller Street, a ranch-style live/work space near the corner of Highway 50 and Teller Street. The property is commercially zoned (C-1) and is ideally located for local pre-school, elementary, middle and high school students to access by walking or biking. The property will allow housing for a full-time caretaker, as well as temporary housing for visiting artists, employees, etc.
RiNo Art Park Project
Denver - $1.25 million
The RiNo ArtPark located in a state-certified creative district at 35th and Arkins and will provide the families in the area with much needed green space, access to the outdoors, and a safe and clean play environment, and will serve over 85,000 individuals from the surrounding area each year. This will bring the historic and diverse communities of north Denver together and to engage them and give them an outlet to express themselves through art, food and culture. The RiNo Art District has hired a dedicated community engagement staff person to ensure that surrounding residents will continue to have a significant voice in the programming and use of the ArtPark.
The ArtPark will hold classes with partners to provide a broad range of educational opportunities for people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities. This will be a new kind of park environment for Denver, one in which both the park and the buildings become a campus of interactive learning, culture, and community gathering. RiNo ArtPark creates affordable space for artists, a library and maker space, a culinary kitchen providing workforce development training and advances diversity, equity and inclusion with the surrounding neighborhoods.
The Commons at Space to Create Trinidad Project
Trinidad, CO - $1.55 million
Trinidad is known for its funky character and annual ArtoCade art car event, and the community is devoted to downtown revival efforts. Trinidad’s Space to Create project transforms the entire 200 block of downtown Main Street into a dynamic complex combining three historic structures with distinct exteriors, linking the second stories of all three with 13 affordable, live/work apartments for creatives. Street-level amenities will feature a “dirty” makerspace for tenants to utilize, and the city’s own 20,000- square-foot mixed-use facility including coworking and office space for the Creative District.
New businesses will be supported to launch with coaching and financial support through a business incubator program along with music, galleries, food and community space..
These six projects join the first four that were announced last week: Wonderbound in Northeast Park Hill, FreshLo in Montbello, the St. Cloud Hotel in Cañon City and Space to Create Ridgway.
The Community Revitalization Grant is still open, and shovel-ready, mixed-use projects that advance the creative industries are encouraged to apply.