Colorado Springs Mayor Lionel Rivera
In 2007, Mayor Lionel Rivera made revitalization of the decaying commercial corridor a priority.
It was a recognition that retail flight to the ‘burbs of Powers Boulevard, Woodmen Road and points north had taken its toll on Academy.
Especially the six miles from Drennan Road north to Maizeland Road.
Thanks to a federal transit grant, the city now has money to study options for the boulevard.
It is soliciting ideas of the public at a public hearing scheduled 4:30-6:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 24 at Sierra High School.
This is the start of a process that could reshape Academy, which is unusual in Colorado Springs. It’s a major artery that originated in the late 1950s in the city’s north end, at the entrance to the Air Force Academy.
Gradually, it was built to the south and became the retail heart of the city when The Citadel mall opened in February 1972 at Platte Avenue.
Big box retailers flocked to the area in strip malls. It boomed until the 1990s when a massive population explosion led to development of neighborhoods east and north. Retailers followed, setting up shops along Powers. Today, much of South Academy is marred by vacant stores.
===============================================================================
Go to the public hearing and give the experts your ideas.
Rich Laden, Gazette business writer extraordinaire
Should it be reclassified from a major artery/limited access expressway down to a slower moving roadway conducive to residential redevelopment?
What about curb cuts or changes to make it viable for rapid transit or light rail?
Here’s an excellent piece The Gazette’s expert Rich Laden wrote Dec. 29, 2007, on the plight of Academy Boulevard.
His story was accompanied by a great graphic that detailed the corridor.
Below is a map of the corridor and corresponding explanations of the various sections as Laden found them at the time.
xxx
=============================================================================
Changing Academy will be next to impossible. Unfortunately, it takes a large developer who can take over lots of area. Can’t do that on Academy, too many smaller shops. I am all for the smaller shops but they do not attract destination shoppers. Small shops support the local community. That’s what South Academy is now.
Best they can hope for is to attract some larger stores. The SouthGate shopping center down Nevada comes to mind. They had smaller stores but now it has major retailers. Put something like that down south of Galley, that would be a start.
There are way too many shopping centers both large and small through out Colorado Springs, along with way too many Auto Dealerships through out Colorado Springs, the economy here cannot handle this many businesses through out Colorado Springs. This is why a lot of the smaller shopping centers are dying, and the businewsses that seem to be surviving in this economy should all be relocated to either the Citadel Mall or the Chapel hills Mall, and all the remaining empty shopping centers should be destroyed along with all the empty buildings. If a new business comes into Colorado Springs then accomodate them into a vacant building rather than build them a brand new building just for them with tax payer money, there are tons of empty buildings now through out Colorado Springs know matter where you look. Colorado Springs would rather build another brand new shopping center like they did on North Nevada, rather than using an existing shopping center that already has empty buildings that are vacant that could be used instead. This concept of building brand new buildings just to bring in new business to Colorado Springs is a waste of money, time, and effort on the part of the City, and makes absolute no sense at all period..
“In 2007, Mayor Lionel Rivera made revitalization of the decaying commercial corridor a priority.”
Then he went on to vote to support Copper ridge as an urban redevelopment zone (pristine land) instead of staying focused on those nine areas that are already identified as urban redevelopment zones. There are tons of ideas on how to redevelop this town and some of them were on display at the East Library. Vote for a decent mayor and city council this next April, then we can get started.