6 hours Ago
By Kurt Nordback In 2020, following the lead of cities around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, the City of Boulder created a pedestrianized community space on west Pearl Street to provide residents with more public open space for socializing, eating outside, browsing shops or simply basking in Colorado weather. The city diverted vehicle traffic to allow for safe walking and recreation on the entire street and to allow restaurants to add seating in what had been the roadway. The public space, two blocks of Pearl from 9th to 11th Streets and a half-block section of 10th Street, almost immediately became a beloved spot in the community.
The Pearl Street Mall is also a beloved part of our city, but this felt different. It was a little more raw, a little less polished, and as a result, it felt like a space first and foremost for Boulderites . Certainly tourists walking the Mall continued onto these blocks to the west, no longer deterred by narrow sidewalks and a car-dominated street.
But it felt uniquely like a place for us. Although no reliable survey data exists, it also seemed to attract a broader demographic, including young people and people of color, than does the Mall with its highly-programmed, tourist-centered vibe. That’s why, when the pandemic-related emergency orders were lifted in 2022 and city staff decided to dismantle this prized space, there was nothing short of outrage in the community.
City Council received hundreds upon hundreds of letters begging that the west Pearl community space remain — possibly more letters than Council has ever received on a single topic. City staff promised to do a “West End Multi-Modal Analysis,” which to our knowledge was never delivered. The city did create pop-up pedestrianized spaces on 13th Street in the summer of 2023 , but these were almost all an unmitigated failure, probably because they were too programmed, intermittent and not where people wanted to be.
Despite the fading of the pandemic, it’s clear that the desire remains in Boulder for public, urban community space that is more free-form than the Pearl Street Mall: a place that’s open to tourists , but primarily designed for locals to gather, connect and build community. Meanwhile, although some downtown businesses are doing well, others continue to suffer, in part due to declining numbers of locals eating and shopping in the area. These factors are why we launched the Pearl For You ( pearlforyou.
org/sign ) ballot initiative campaign. We want to: • Create appealing, active community space; • Draw more locals, and their dollars, to downtown; • And make downtown an easier, safer, more inviting place to walk around. Some have expressed concern about the possible cost of creating this community space.
But the implementation during the pandemic cost only a few thousand dollars — a drop in the bucket of the city’s half-billion dollar budget. It’s true that Boulder has a tradition of gold-plated projects, but that’s a more basic problem to be fixed. In fact, we can use West Pearl as a test case in how to create good things more cost-effectively.
It’s been encouraging to see all the enthusiastic community support for our goals. Boulderites are clearly craving the opportunity to improve our downtown, which hasn’t appreciably changed since the Pearl Street Mall was created nearly 50 years ago. It’s also been encouraging to experience all the discussions that our measure has prompted, including discussions between business interests and community groups that are probably long overdue, and wouldn’t be happening without the ballot initiative.
We welcome engagement with and input from all segments of the community , including businesses, residents and property owners. And we’re eager to collaborate to create a downtown that is more successful and more appealing for everyone. So we urge Boulder voters to sign the petition at pearlforyou.
org/sign , and join us in crafting a better, more successful downtown. Kurt Nordback is a member of the city’s Planning Board and the chair of the Pearl For You campaign. Nordback lives in Boulder.
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