Get used to that big patch of dirt next to the bus terminal at Broadway and Colfax Avenue. It could be there awhile.

The Regional Transportation District in December wrapped up a $31 million overhaul of the formerly dark and leaky Civic Center Station. The new station has drawn some criticism — mainly about a lack of comfortable places to sit — but one thing is sure to stand out to people, even if they’re not catching a bus: The land south of the station is vacant, covered in a layer of fine-crushed rock.

Preconstruction renderings show umbrella-shaded seating areas and a basketball court on the land, but aside from adding some bike parking, there are no plans to lay sod, plant trees or change the lot that spans Colfax between Broadway and Lincoln. The project budget was invested entirely in the bus terminal, RTD officials say.

“We knew exactly what was going to happen: We were going to open this (station) and people were gonna go like this: ‘What the heck did they do? There is this gravel lot,'” said Bill Sirois, RTD’s senior manager of transit-oriented communities. He works at Civic Center Plaza, the building east of the station. “We fully expect that we are going to have an ongoing dialogue with folks about what to do with that site.”

Joe Amon, The Denver Post The newly renovated Civic Center Station in downtown Denver, pictured on Dec. 12, 2017, has been under construction for more than a year and will open to the public Dec. 17.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post The look down 16th Street from the newly renovated Civic Center Station in downtown Denver, pictured on Dec. 12, 2017, has been under construction for more than a year and will open to the public Dec. 17.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post The newly renovated Civic Center Station in downtown Denver, pictured on Dec. 12, 2017, has been under construction for more than a year and will open to the public Dec. 17.



Joe Amon, The Denver Post The newly renovated Civic Center Station in downtown Denver, pictured on Dec. 12, 2017, has been under construction for more than a year and will open to the public Dec. 17.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post Bus bays in the newly renovated Civic Center Station, pictured on Dec. 12, 2017, in downtown Denver, which has been under construction for more than a year and opens to the public Dec. 17.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post The newly renovated Civic Center Station in downtown Denver, pictured on Dec. 12, 2017, has been under construction for more than a year and will open to the public Dec. 17.



Joe Amon, The Denver Post 16th Street mall riders loading up at the newly renovated Civic Center Station in downtown Denver, on Dec. 12, 2017. The station has been under construction for more than a year and opens to the public Dec. 17.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post Three outside bays exit onto Lincoln Street in the newly renovated Civic Center Station in downtown Denver on Dec. 12, 2017. The station has been under construction for more than a year and opens to the public Dec. 17,

Workers are parking on the lot as they put the finishing touches on the station, but RTD doesn’t plan to make that a regular thing for the roughly 100-by-300-foot parcel, Sirios said. There have been conversations about allowing temporary uses, such as food trucks, but nothing has gained traction.

One thing RTD is certain about: The corner should not be allowed to return to its previous state, a steep hill rising from Colfax planted with thick shrubs and trees that obscured what Sirois described as “undesirable activity.”

“It was a mecca for drug dealers,” said Shawna Bailey, a regular bus commuter who works at Civic Center Plaza. “Landscaping it would just bring back the same issues they had before.”

RTD and city officials also know they’d ultimately like to see a building on the parcel.

“The question is, would we as RTD want to do that,” Sirois said, “or would we want to partner?”

Redevelopment has its catches. RTD leases the land from a family trust and has the right to develop under the agreement, which is good for the next 57 years. The land lease limits what might be built there to about 100,000 square feet.

Whatever construction does occur on the property isn’t likely to happen soon, leaving RTD and others to ponder the question. Participants in the Downtown Denver Partnership’s 2018 leadership program will spend nine months discussing the corner as part of their studies. They’ll be asked to consider “what we can do in the interim to make that a memorable, engaging, positive place for the neighborhood and for the city in Denver?” said John Desmond, the partnership’s executive vice president of downtown environment.

Affordable housing is most important for Denver Councilman Wayne New, who represents the Civic Center neighborhood.

“There are affordable housing projects that are being discussed that are close to the Civic Center,” he said. “That is the greatest need that we have in the city as well as to help Colfax.”