Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Touting record reductions and homelessness, record reductions and violent crime,
and record investments in downtown. Denver Mayor Right Johnston, delivering
his annual State of the City addressed earlier in the week,
but added that more work still remains.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We still have seven million square feet office space in downtown,
which means when Courtney and I discovered one of our
local favorite restaurants, Cap City, we'll be closing after twenty
years because still not enough of their customers have returned
post COVID and that is not good enough.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Joining us now on the Kawa Common Spirit Health hotline
is Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, mister Merrit, Thank you so
much for your time.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
As always, Good morning all. Great to be Helen, Thanks
for having me well.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
You just played a piece from your State of the
City address earlier this week where you mentioned the sad
closing of Cap City Tavern. I went down there yesterday
tried to speak with the owners because they actually released
a statement talking about in a sense almost blaming city policies,
Denver's high minimum wage, the rising costs, the taxes and
fees that they're dealing with for the struggling businesses downtown.
(00:58):
So With that being said, what is being done legislatively
or what is trying to be done in order to
help these small businesses keep their doors open, because it
sounds like we're just hearing of more and more. Denver
Suite right down the street also announced that they'll be
closing this weekend as well.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Yeah, I talked with Deno, the owner there too about it.
And there is a lot of variables going on in
the economy. We know one is, yes, prices are going up,
and so obviously tariff and economic impacts and meaning the
cost of goods are higher. We have fewer people still
coming in to eat lunch in the middle of the
work week because more folks are working from home, and
so we know those are all variables, and we do
(01:35):
know for restaurants and Denver the minimum wage has been
a real challenge. And then people know we've talked about
this issue before, but great idea always to raise wages
to make sure we pay people a fair living wage.
I think the difference was in the olden days, if
you were a tipped employee, you made a very small
two or three dollars minimum wage and all your money
was made from tips. Now that the rule equalized a
(01:57):
server's minimum wage everyone else's minimum wage than have the
same base eighteen or nineteen dollars an hour plus the tips,
which is great for them, it just means it's more
costs for the restaurants and less equitable distribution of who
makes those funds, So the folks working in the back
of the house are making far left. So that's something
we've heard from restaurants before. We're working on ways to
(02:18):
try to address that. But yeah, I think the key
is we're working on more and more foot traffic down
into downtown is you know, the biggest driver. That's why
getting people back to work, that's why getting people more
people to live downtown. We're focusing on taking a lot
of that empty office space you heard me talk about
and converting those into apartments. We'd like to convert about
four million square feet of office space from empty offices
(02:38):
to fill departments. And that puts people out to buy
coffee in the morning and lunchtering the middle of the day
and beers at night, and that helps all those businesses.
So we're really focused on reactiving in downtown. It's been
a huge increase in activity with the opening of sixteenth Street,
but we got more work to do.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Mayor Johnston s Did you talk about the conversion of
some of that office space, and I think we've talked
about this before. How realistic is that because some of
that space is just the investment to do so, isn't
it very cost prohibitive?
Speaker 4 (03:05):
You breaking a little bit lighter, But yeah, I think
we know that can't all be converted into apartments, right.
Some of it we do obviously want to keep as
commercial space, and we we'll also focusing on keeping businesses
that are downtown in downtown. We'll have fifty new retail
shops that will open on sixteenth Street by the time
this year is over, and we do want more businesses
that have made and maybe left downtown moved down to
(03:25):
the Tech Center and other places to come back. We'll
keep recruiting businesses to fill that commercial space. We do
want to keep working with business to bring more folks
back into the office more days. But we want it
to be a combination of both commercial space still and residential.
But there's too much open commercial to just fill it
with commercial clients. And we do have always more need
(03:45):
for affordable apartment units and downtown is a great place
to live if folks want to be downtown, so we
think that's a great way to make the neamebor active.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I know the businesses along the Sixteenth Street mall are
probably Sixteenth Street are probably happy that the construction has
ended there. However, those on Colefax seem to be struggling
or having those issues as the bus rapid transit construction
is underway. I know you actually took a shift at
the Tire Lounge last night, but did you hear from
some of the business owners some of the concerns that
they have as they'll be dealing with a pretty long
(04:14):
construction project in order to revamp Coalfax there.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Yeah, I have talked with them, and I was just
at the Satire and at Pete's this week. Great place.
You haven't been back to the Satire Lounge, an amazing
same family around it in nineteen sixty two, And yeah,
I am worried about it. And what people people may
know is this was a project in motion before I
became mayor. But it's a bus rapid transit construction project
which allows us to have more frequent, more reliable buses
(04:40):
moving up and down Colfax more quickly, so you'd get
a bus about every five minutes, and it has a
dedicated bus lane to move much faster. But it's a
construction project for the next year and a half or
so to get there, and so we're really focused on
trying to help those businesses survive. So I'd say to everybody,
you know, that's why I'm doing a lot of visiting
cole Facts. Come to your favorite bar on Colfax, come
to your favorite restaurant, heat and support those local favorites
(05:01):
because they know that the construction will help them long term.
But it's always hard when you got fences up and around,
but all those business on Coalfacts are open, So we're
working hard to make the construction move fast to make
sure we can minimize the impact. We have a city fund.
We're one of the few cities in the country that
has resources we give to support businesses and places of
high profile construction. But it won't be enough without all
(05:23):
of us leaning in. So I'm going to keep going
to places like the Satire in Petez, and we hope
everyone else comes to Colfax too.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Maryor Johnston. We heard from a chief Ron Thomas earlier
this morning talking about the new Common Sense Institute report
and by the way, I don't know how often you
engage with the common sense INSOT report or how much
stock you put in there. But Chief Thomas was talking
about some of the numbers that they have released and
he said that sexual assaults, domestic violence is rising drastically
city wide. Is that true and if so, what is
(05:51):
being done to address that.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Yeah, we're really pleased with the progress on overall violent crime.
As I mentioned in the State of the city. We had
about a fifty eight percent reduction in the murder rate
this year over year from last year. This year, that's
the largest decrease of any of the biggest fifty cities
in the country. So that's all moving in the right direction.
We have auto theft down almost fifty percent, so that's
(06:15):
great stuff. But the places we are still worried is
domestic violence, the place where we do see increases. We're
doing everything we can to do more and more intervention
and prevention. That's identifying places where we have people who
are at risk of committing those kind of crimes, who've
had history of either mental health or trauma, who we
think are potentially dangerous, and being able to get to
them in advance before they make those kind of decisions,
(06:37):
and so that is one of the hardest crimes to
stop because it's about intimate relationships that it's hard for
us to get into the middle of. But we are
working hard on prevention and information and getting folks who
are at risk of being abused to safety, com preay
for the places like the Rosandem Center of the Metigrade
additional support for mostly women facing that kind of abuse.
So we're working hard on that, but that is an
area where we have more work to do despite the
(06:58):
really great success producing the home side rate.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
In the newscast this morning, we're also talking a little
bit about what's been taking place near Lincoln Veterans Memorial
Park by the Capital. It seems like more and more
people are congregating there. We've seen some drug use. I mean,
there's a part of the sidewalk where I personally don't
even walk in that area because it seems like it's
starting to become like a traveling encampment with no tents
or anything like that. Is things being done in order
(07:23):
to address those or the congregating because obviously people can
congregate in a park however they want, but it seems
like more illegal use is happening there.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Yeah, we are working hard on that is actually state
land that side that Veterans Park, and so it's run
and overseen by the state and by State Patrol. It's
not the jurisdiction of our Denver Police Department. So we've
worked very hard on Civic Center Park, which is to
the west of there, and you'll see it as entirely clean.
We don't have any folks there that are either selling
or using. We've our park ranger has done a fantastic job.
(07:54):
I'm in conversations with the governor and their team about
what they can do about Veterans Park because we it's
really important for us to have that section of downtown
and cleaned up. You know, we do want places where
folks can hang out and visit on a hot day,
but they should be able to do that without committing
any crimes. And so we do have public spaces in
the Savor people can gather, but they can't be committing
crimes to do it. And so we'll keep working with
the governor and their team to get that site and.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Forced Mayor Johnson, I'm out here broadcasting live Broncos Park
powered by Commons Spirit. I know in the State of
the City address, you talked about that the Broncos staying
within the Denver city limits. Anything you care to announce,
any insight you can provide as to knowing that's going
to happen.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
I would love to do that. I was surprised we
got this far into that broadcast without talking about the Broncos,
given that you're there already. I'll just say, you know,
I don't think there's ever been a more die hard
Broncos fan in the Mayor's office than me, and that's
been true for life. And I think that I've said
there's no world in which we're going to let the
Broncos leave Denver. I'm really excited about the conversations we're
happening with the ownership. I think they have the same
vision to be a long term masse set in the city,
(08:57):
and I feel like we're getting close to some exciting news.
I will I will be the first one to let
you know as soon as we get there. But I
feel like progress is great and my hopes are high.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
You were the first on the bow nixt train. We
do have to remind our listeners about that that we
have that video of you cheering as who was picked,
but real quick, Mayor, in wrapping up with you our
social media poll question way too early Broncos predictions.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
What do you got?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Playoffs? One playoff game, AFC titles super Bowl.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Well, my big pick is I'm saying eleven and six
and I'm saying this is the year win the AFC West.
I think this is the year we detron the Chiefs
and we get into the playoffs with the home with
a home playoff game, which is be fantastic. So I
feel I feel great about our run this year. Yes,
I'm so excited about what those gonna do in here
two and so I'm fully on the bandwagon and staying
and delighted that the bandwagons is getting very crowded.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Mayor Johnson, always appreciate your time.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Thank you, Thanks you all. Have a great morning.
Touting record reductions and homelessness, record reductions and violent crime,
and record investments in downtown. Denver Mayor Right Johnston, delivering
his annual State of the City addressed earlier in the week,
but added that more work still remains.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We still have seven million square feet office space in downtown,
which means when Courtney and I discovered one of our
local favorite restaurants, Cap City, we'll be closing after twenty
years because still not enough of their customers have returned
post COVID and that is not good enough.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Joining us now on the Kawa Common Spirit Health hotline
is Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, mister Merrit, Thank you so
much for your time.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
As always, Good morning all. Great to be Helen, Thanks
for having me well.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
You just played a piece from your State of the
City address earlier this week where you mentioned the sad
closing of Cap City Tavern. I went down there yesterday
tried to speak with the owners because they actually released
a statement talking about in a sense almost blaming city policies,
Denver's high minimum wage, the rising costs, the taxes and
fees that they're dealing with for the struggling businesses downtown.
(00:58):
So With that being said, what is being done legislatively
or what is trying to be done in order to
help these small businesses keep their doors open, because it
sounds like we're just hearing of more and more. Denver
Suite right down the street also announced that they'll be
closing this weekend as well.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Yeah, I talked with Deno, the owner there too about it.
And there is a lot of variables going on in
the economy. We know one is, yes, prices are going up,
and so obviously tariff and economic impacts and meaning the
cost of goods are higher. We have fewer people still
coming in to eat lunch in the middle of the
work week because more folks are working from home, and
so we know those are all variables, and we do
(01:35):
know for restaurants and Denver the minimum wage has been
a real challenge. And then people know we've talked about
this issue before, but great idea always to raise wages
to make sure we pay people a fair living wage.
I think the difference was in the olden days, if
you were a tipped employee, you made a very small
two or three dollars minimum wage and all your money
was made from tips. Now that the rule equalized a
(01:57):
server's minimum wage everyone else's minimum wage than have the
same base eighteen or nineteen dollars an hour plus the tips,
which is great for them, it just means it's more
costs for the restaurants and less equitable distribution of who
makes those funds, So the folks working in the back
of the house are making far left. So that's something
we've heard from restaurants before. We're working on ways to
(02:18):
try to address that. But yeah, I think the key
is we're working on more and more foot traffic down
into downtown is you know, the biggest driver. That's why
getting people back to work, that's why getting people more
people to live downtown. We're focusing on taking a lot
of that empty office space you heard me talk about
and converting those into apartments. We'd like to convert about
four million square feet of office space from empty offices
(02:38):
to fill departments. And that puts people out to buy
coffee in the morning and lunchtering the middle of the day
and beers at night, and that helps all those businesses.
So we're really focused on reactiving in downtown. It's been
a huge increase in activity with the opening of sixteenth Street,
but we got more work to do.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Mayor Johnston s Did you talk about the conversion of
some of that office space, and I think we've talked
about this before. How realistic is that because some of
that space is just the investment to do so, isn't
it very cost prohibitive?
Speaker 4 (03:05):
You breaking a little bit lighter, But yeah, I think
we know that can't all be converted into apartments, right.
Some of it we do obviously want to keep as
commercial space, and we we'll also focusing on keeping businesses
that are downtown in downtown. We'll have fifty new retail
shops that will open on sixteenth Street by the time
this year is over, and we do want more businesses
that have made and maybe left downtown moved down to
(03:25):
the Tech Center and other places to come back. We'll
keep recruiting businesses to fill that commercial space. We do
want to keep working with business to bring more folks
back into the office more days. But we want it
to be a combination of both commercial space still and residential.
But there's too much open commercial to just fill it
with commercial clients. And we do have always more need
(03:45):
for affordable apartment units and downtown is a great place
to live if folks want to be downtown, so we
think that's a great way to make the neamebor active.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I know the businesses along the Sixteenth Street mall are
probably Sixteenth Street are probably happy that the construction has
ended there. However, those on Colefax seem to be struggling
or having those issues as the bus rapid transit construction
is underway. I know you actually took a shift at
the Tire Lounge last night, but did you hear from
some of the business owners some of the concerns that
they have as they'll be dealing with a pretty long
(04:14):
construction project in order to revamp Coalfax there.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Yeah, I have talked with them, and I was just
at the Satire and at Pete's this week. Great place.
You haven't been back to the Satire Lounge, an amazing
same family around it in nineteen sixty two, And yeah,
I am worried about it. And what people people may
know is this was a project in motion before I
became mayor. But it's a bus rapid transit construction project
which allows us to have more frequent, more reliable buses
(04:40):
moving up and down Colfax more quickly, so you'd get
a bus about every five minutes, and it has a
dedicated bus lane to move much faster. But it's a
construction project for the next year and a half or
so to get there, and so we're really focused on
trying to help those businesses survive. So I'd say to everybody,
you know, that's why I'm doing a lot of visiting
cole Facts. Come to your favorite bar on Colfax, come
to your favorite restaurant, heat and support those local favorites
(05:01):
because they know that the construction will help them long term.
But it's always hard when you got fences up and around,
but all those business on Coalfacts are open, So we're
working hard to make the construction move fast to make
sure we can minimize the impact. We have a city fund.
We're one of the few cities in the country that
has resources we give to support businesses and places of
high profile construction. But it won't be enough without all
(05:23):
of us leaning in. So I'm going to keep going
to places like the Satire in Petez, and we hope
everyone else comes to Colfax too.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Maryor Johnston. We heard from a chief Ron Thomas earlier
this morning talking about the new Common Sense Institute report
and by the way, I don't know how often you
engage with the common sense INSOT report or how much
stock you put in there. But Chief Thomas was talking
about some of the numbers that they have released and
he said that sexual assaults, domestic violence is rising drastically
city wide. Is that true and if so, what is
(05:51):
being done to address that.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Yeah, we're really pleased with the progress on overall violent crime.
As I mentioned in the State of the city. We had
about a fifty eight percent reduction in the murder rate
this year over year from last year. This year, that's
the largest decrease of any of the biggest fifty cities
in the country. So that's all moving in the right direction.
We have auto theft down almost fifty percent, so that's
(06:15):
great stuff. But the places we are still worried is
domestic violence, the place where we do see increases. We're
doing everything we can to do more and more intervention
and prevention. That's identifying places where we have people who
are at risk of committing those kind of crimes, who've
had history of either mental health or trauma, who we
think are potentially dangerous, and being able to get to
them in advance before they make those kind of decisions,
(06:37):
and so that is one of the hardest crimes to
stop because it's about intimate relationships that it's hard for
us to get into the middle of. But we are
working hard on prevention and information and getting folks who
are at risk of being abused to safety, com preay
for the places like the Rosandem Center of the Metigrade
additional support for mostly women facing that kind of abuse.
So we're working hard on that, but that is an
area where we have more work to do despite the
(06:58):
really great success producing the home side rate.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
In the newscast this morning, we're also talking a little
bit about what's been taking place near Lincoln Veterans Memorial
Park by the Capital. It seems like more and more
people are congregating there. We've seen some drug use. I mean,
there's a part of the sidewalk where I personally don't
even walk in that area because it seems like it's
starting to become like a traveling encampment with no tents
or anything like that. Is things being done in order
(07:23):
to address those or the congregating because obviously people can
congregate in a park however they want, but it seems
like more illegal use is happening there.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Yeah, we are working hard on that is actually state
land that side that Veterans Park, and so it's run
and overseen by the state and by State Patrol. It's
not the jurisdiction of our Denver Police Department. So we've
worked very hard on Civic Center Park, which is to
the west of there, and you'll see it as entirely clean.
We don't have any folks there that are either selling
or using. We've our park ranger has done a fantastic job.
(07:54):
I'm in conversations with the governor and their team about
what they can do about Veterans Park because we it's
really important for us to have that section of downtown
and cleaned up. You know, we do want places where
folks can hang out and visit on a hot day,
but they should be able to do that without committing
any crimes. And so we do have public spaces in
the Savor people can gather, but they can't be committing
crimes to do it. And so we'll keep working with
the governor and their team to get that site and.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Forced Mayor Johnson, I'm out here broadcasting live Broncos Park
powered by Commons Spirit. I know in the State of
the City address, you talked about that the Broncos staying
within the Denver city limits. Anything you care to announce,
any insight you can provide as to knowing that's going
to happen.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
I would love to do that. I was surprised we
got this far into that broadcast without talking about the Broncos,
given that you're there already. I'll just say, you know,
I don't think there's ever been a more die hard
Broncos fan in the Mayor's office than me, and that's
been true for life. And I think that I've said
there's no world in which we're going to let the
Broncos leave Denver. I'm really excited about the conversations we're
happening with the ownership. I think they have the same
vision to be a long term masse set in the city,
(08:57):
and I feel like we're getting close to some exciting news.
I will I will be the first one to let
you know as soon as we get there. But I
feel like progress is great and my hopes are high.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
You were the first on the bow nixt train. We
do have to remind our listeners about that that we
have that video of you cheering as who was picked,
but real quick, Mayor, in wrapping up with you our
social media poll question way too early Broncos predictions.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
What do you got?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Playoffs? One playoff game, AFC titles super Bowl.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Well, my big pick is I'm saying eleven and six
and I'm saying this is the year win the AFC West.
I think this is the year we detron the Chiefs
and we get into the playoffs with the home with
a home playoff game, which is be fantastic. So I
feel I feel great about our run this year. Yes,
I'm so excited about what those gonna do in here
two and so I'm fully on the bandwagon and staying
and delighted that the bandwagons is getting very crowded.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Mayor Johnson, always appreciate your time.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Thank you, Thanks you all. Have a great morning.
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