You don’t have to read 236 pages about an old golf course to better understand what’s happening next, because we did it for you.
Published in the Denverite
What’s 155 acres, grassy and not a golf course?
Park Hill Golf Course. It closed in 2018 and was sold a year later to Westside Investment Partners, who planned to then work with the city to sort out the land’s excruciatingly complicated conservation easement. Another group called Save Open Space Denver wants Westside to forget developing the land altogether and keep it as-is.
Everyone else has been caught in the middle, including the Park Hill Golf Course Steering Committee, a 27-member board that consists of residents, community leaders, activists and one Westside representative.
The latest insight into community wants and needs comes in the form of a study conducted by RRC Associates, a marketing firm paid by the city. According to their results, people living nearby basically want the big rectangle of space at 35th and Colorado to do multiple jobs. That’s not surprising, according to Sean Maher of RRC.
“Among all household types, races and ethnicities, a combination of green space and development was the preferred option,” he said at a steering committee meeting on June 8.
The study was conducted through two surveys – one was sent via mail to all residents living within 0.8 miles of the site, as well as a few randomly-selected households up to 1 mile away. The other survey was distributed online and was open to the general public. Around 1,300 people and 1,400 people responded to the mail and online surveys, respectively.