What It Was The southeast corner of Arvada was in need ofrevitalization. The area consisted of used carlots, decaying lumber yards, a dying down-town, and high crime rates. The urgency to ad-dress this part of the city was one of severaldeciding factors in the citizens of Arvada takingaction and voting for creation of an urban re-newal authority. The City Center Urban Re-newal Area was formed in 1981, and AURAwas charged by Arvada City Council with reme-diating blight and facilitating redevelopment ina 443-acre section of southeast Arvada. Thiswas accomplished in three phases.

City Center

What It Is• Phase 1 - Developed the Power Center -

AURA’s focus was to create a retail corridoralong Wadsworth Bypass just north of I-70.With development partners, AURA attractedlarge users such as Costco, Sam's Club,Lowe's, Home Depot, PetsMart, OfficeDepot, and a 14 screen movie theater.Smaller users such as banks, retail shops,auto centers, and restaurants also occupiedthis corridor.

• Phase 2 - Restored Historic Olde Town Arvada - AURA turned attention to OldeTown and utilized funds generated by thePower Center to invest in the preservation,protection and enhancement of Olde TownArvada. This was achieved through newstreetscapes, façade grants, a new TownSquare, monument signs, and the develop-ment of new two-story, mixed-use buildings– Grandview Plaza, Reno Place and the JehnCenter.

• Phase 3 - Created the Water Tower Resi-dential Village - AURA then focused on a26-acre site located adjacent to Olde Townthat contained 16 poorly maintained apart-ment buildings, which were plagued by thehighest crime rate in the city. AURA pur-chased 50 properties, including these apart-ments, and relocated 75 families into betterneighborhoods. The area is now home to600 row houses, cottages, lofts, and apart-ments. The residential village is pedestrian

oriented with alley loaded garages, de-tached sidewalks, tree-lined streets, andtwo pocket parks.

Project Highlights• Southeast Arvada achieved a remarkable

transformation from an area with inade-quate infrastructure, a high crime rate andblighted neighborhoods into a vibrant blendof commercial, retail and residential usesthat complement the character of Arvada’shistoric downtown.

• Established in 1981, the City Center URA ex-pired twenty-five years later in 2006. It wasonly the second such district to sunset inColorado at the time and is regarded as oneof the most successful applications of urbanrenewal in the state.

• The efforts of AURA to remediate blight,increased the sales and property tax rev-enue in the district by over $14.7 million ayear.

In 2005, the City Center URA expired. Incremental taxes paid to AURA during term of URA were received by existing taxing districts starting in 2006.The amount of taxes receivedby each district increased 192%as a result of the project.

Property Taxes Received by Taxing DistrictsCity Center Urban Renewal Area (1986 to 2006)