🏙️ 10 new projects to save downtown

⛪ Local Student Considered for Sainthood

A Douglas County church is asking the Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs to refer Kendrick Castillo to the Vatican to be considered for sainthood. Castillo was an 18-year-old student killed in the 2019 STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting while trying to protect his fellow classmates. [Denver Post 🔒]

🤳 Do Better Denver Contributors Called Out

An investigation by The Denver Post connected three women — two of whom no longer live in Colorado — to the anonymous social media account, Do Better Denver, through open records requests. However, all three women denied being the actual owner of the account, which claims to have thousands of contributors. [Denver Post 🔒]

• Who is Do Better Denver? The self-proclaimed “citizen journalist” account has developed a large local following for its inflammatory posts that aim for shock value through crass photos and videos of homelessness, drug use, and crime in the city.

⚖️ DPS Cleared in 2023 Death of Teen

A Denver District Court Judge has ruled that Denver Public Schools is not liable for the death of 16-year-old student Luis Garcia who was shot outside East High School in 2023. (No one has been charged in connection with the incident.) Garcia’s family plans to appeal the ruling, but the judge says Garcia was killed on a public road, not on school property. [Chalkbeat]

🏙️ Our First Look at Mayor Johnston’s Downtown Vision

What does it say about the mayor and Denver’s newly expanded Downtown Development Authority that their first batch of funding includes an immersive theater company and an ice cream shop? Westword editor Patty Calhoun joins us to discuss residential conversion projects, debate back-to-office likelihoods, and dissect what else the DDA’s first $100 million will be funding for downtown. [City Cast Denver 🎧]

It’s no secret — the Mile High City is blessed with a robust and accessible network of public parks and greenspaces. Denver even ranked in the top 10 of the best big-city parks systems in the country by the Trust for Public Land earlier this year. Soon, another 155 acres of greenspace will be coming online when a yet-to-be-named park at the site of the former Park HIll Golf Course opens. In honor of this moment, here’s a look at one of Denver’s most influential greenspace designers, Saco Rienk DeBoer, and the ways he shaped how we experience the city’s outdoor spaces today.

Who Was S.R. DeBoer?

Saco Rienk DeBoer was born in the Netherlands in 1883. The son of an architect, he grew up to study engineering, horticulture, and landscape design, eventually opening his own landscaping office. But a bout of tuberculosis in 1908 sent DeBoer packing for America in search of a dryer climate. He ultimately settled in Denver, a well-known low-humidity refuge for hundreds of thousands of TB patients at the time. He began working at the city nursery, and alongside fellow landscape architect George Kessler, used his expertise to convert a city dump into what is known today as Sunken Gardens Park. After this topographical transformation caught the attention of Mayor Robert Speer, DeBoer was named the official landscape architect of the city in 1910.

Saco and the City Beautiful Movement

During Mayor Speer’s first term in office from 1904 to 1912, he embraced the “City Beautiful Movement” — a national shift in philosophy around the built environment, introducing public park space as something central to the vitality of urban life. DeBoer’s designs were integral in this transformation for Denver, as evidenced by his work on Alamo Placita Park, Berkeley Lake Park, South Marion Street Parkway, and Speer Boulevard’s greenways. Mayor Speer’s vision included installing decorative fountains, benches, playgrounds, and drinking fountains around the city, which DeBoer worked into many of his landscapes. He even had a hand in the design of Washington Park, but was stymied by a change in leadership when Speer left office and the new administration put a stop to that project.