Denver Hosts Rail~Volution Conference, Emphasizes Connection Between Livability and Transit
Each year Rail~Volution chooses a new city to host its four day conference, which focuses on building livable cities near transit. Past cities include San Francisco, Dallas, Minneapolis and Seattle. This year, Denver was chosen to host the conference, which was fitting for a city that has witnessed unprecedented growth in the past 10 years (The population of Denver in 2007 was 579,000, and estimates for 2017 place the population around 716,000). This growth has put a strain on almost every form of transit in Denver often seen by congested highways, insufficient biking infrastructure and a lack of light rail and commuter rail options.
Hosting a conference built around the idea of creating livable cities along transit corridors is directly correlated to the mission of ULC. Since our founding in 2003, ULC has focused on the value of the development and preservation of affordable housing and nonprofit facility space along transit corridors to provide true affordability to low-income residents. This was why we partnered with Enterprise Community Partners, the City and County of Denver and several additional investors to create the Denver TOD Fund in 2010. ULC has since acquired 9 properties for the preservation and development of over 700 affordable rental units, 200,000 square feet of commercial space and over 700 jobs.
On the third day of Rail~Volution, ULC hosted a tour in partnership with Mile High Connects titled “Bringing Permanent Affordable Housing to TOD.” We led over 35 participants from across the U.S. and Canada on a tour of our transit-oriented developments in metro Denver, starting with a tour of the Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales Library at our Mile High Vista development. We then led the group to Sheridan Station TOD on the W Line, where Tony Pickett of ULC, George Thorn of Mile High Development and Carl Koelbel of Koelbel and Company gave a presentation on the future mixed-use development planned for development at the site. We ended the tour with lunch and a presentation at the award winning Evans Station Lofts; 50 units of affordable housing adjacent to the Evans Station light rail (which serves the C and D lines).
Troy Gladwell and Josh Russell of Medici Consulting Group, who purchased the land from ULC in 2012 after receiving Low Income Housing Tax Credits for the development, shared their perspectives behind affordable housing development in Denver. They were joined by Chris Nevitt, Denver’s first Citywide Manager for Transit-Oriented Development and Jaime Gomez, the Chief Operating Officer for the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority.
Thank you to Rail~Volution for hosting an informative and extremely relevant conference in our city. It isn’t every day where policy makers, community members and investors from hundreds of different cities can discuss a matter affecting most cities across the globe: how can we make cities more livable for our residents?