When I first moved to Denver, the Platte Valley - the area just to the west of downtown Denver, was a maze of railroad yards. Then a new baseball stadium - Coors Field - was built in Lower Downtown (LoDo), and that neighborhood began to become a very popular nightclub district. Soon plans were made to develop the Platte Valley into an entirely new neighborhood, with high rise apartments, condos, offices, and of course, stores and restaurants. The center piece was Commons Park, seen in the photograph on the left. The Milleneum Bridge was built to connect LoDo to this area, and additional pedestrian bridges were built over the Platte River to connect Commons Park to the West Commons Park neighborhood, and over Interstate 25 to connect that area with the Lower Highlands.
The end result is a very walkable area, starting at downtown's 16th Street Mall, through LoDo, Commons Park, the West Commons Park neighborhood, the Lower Highlands, the Highlands neighborhood itself, and from there to Sloan's Lake. This has created a huge building boom in these areas, especially in the Lower Highlands, arguably the hottest neighborhood in the city. Large apartment buildings are being built on every block, and new bars and restaurants have been opening up all over the place, until of course the recent coronavirus outbreak. One of the most popular gathering places has been Avanti, a food hall with a great rooftop patio, as seen in the photo on the right (taken, of course, before the Covid-19 outbreak). Several years ago, I went there to check out the place, ordered a beer, and walked around the rooftop patio to admire the view of downtown Denver. However, the beer, as I recall, cost in excess of $7.00, and I decided I preferred the view of somewhat tacky East Evans Avenue from the window of Spanky's, a bar which charges $3.75 for happy hour beers, just several blocks from my condo. God knows if any of these places will survive after this pandemic. I surely hope so.
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