I went for a walk through downtown Denver yesterday, and I must say, I was surprised at all the vacant storefronts and lack of crowds on a late Friday afternoon in December. Granted, it was cold, but not all that bad. Before the pandemic, the place was thriving, and always seemed to have people heading hither and yon. Of course, during the pandemic, many businesses closed, and after Covid restrictions ended, many people continued to work from home, leaving office towers half empty, severely reducing the number of customers at all those shops and restaurants. And then, Denver decided to renovate the 16th Street Mall, downtown's main shopping street. It is a construction zone these days, and not a pleasant place to walk, let alone shop. And to top it off, the company that owns Larimer Square, one of the city's top tourist attractions and seen in the photograph on the left, decided to renovate all their buildings, driving out many of their most popular tenants.
Even McGregor Square, located across the street from Coor's Field and seen in the photograph on the right, looks deserted these days. The Tattered Cover Bookstore closed its location there last month, and it looks like Old Chicago, which announced it was planning to open a restaurant there, has decided to back out of that decision. McGregor Square is often packed during baseball season, but there is very little foot-traffic from October thru March, which is a major problem for those shops and restaurants. Of course, other cities have similar problems. Office buildings are half vacant all over the country, and in downtown San Francisco and along the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, organized smash and grabs and other types of crime have resulted in many stores closing their doors. Things will eventually get better, but for now, it is a struggle for downtowns everywhere.
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