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The signs are everywhere: A royal blue square with a tri-color squiggle and the words “Colorado Creative District.” Sixty of them stand beside main streets, thoroughfares and country roads throughout the state, two per creative district.
Though they’re uniform in appearance, the signs mean something different to every community that boasts them. They can point to a sculptor’s enclave, a photography haven or a small town full of woodworkers and cabinetmakers. They can signal a well-established arts ecosystem or an up-and-coming area.
The variety of creative districts is one of the strengths of the 13-year-old state program that provides communities with a $10,000 grant, technical assistance and two blue road signs. The program’s flexible parameters allow towns and cities, of all shapes, sizes and creative economies, to be a part of a larger network.
Whether a district’s goal is to turn a 100-year-old house into a community space for movie nights or to create an infrastructure for entrepreneurs, a lot of it comes down to prioritizing and leveraging that status. And money. A lot of it comes down to money.
Creative districts don’t get direct funding beyond the initial $10,000 injection, but there are ways to use their status to win other state and federal funds, which is how many of the large, one-time projects in creative districts are completed.
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Loveland landed a $5 million community revitalization grant, a state program that grew from $65 million of funding to help small businesses after COVID-19, for the renovation of a historic mill, which will create a mixed-use arts space and nine live-work units. “We would not have received the $5 million through the CCI grant program unless we were a creative district,” said Sean Hawkins, executive director of the Loveland Downtown District. “I mean, if the only thing we get out of becoming a creative district is money to finish the Feed & Grain, that’s a success, all right?”
They were able to tap into this money because creative districts are among the 11 eligible organizations that can apply for a community revitalization grant, which are also administered through Colorado Creative Industries.
The same happened in Ridgway, which funded its Space to Create housing project using a $2 million community revitalization grant. About half of the community revitalization grants, which totaled over $100 million during fiscal year 2022-23, were distributed to projects in creative districts (though it should be noted that not all grants were applied for by the creative district — municipalities, historic districts and nonprofits can also apply).
Creative districts are also eligible for operational support grants. Last year, $69,000 was doled out among 23 districts that applied.
Colorado Creative Industries gets its funding from gambling revenue — a $2 million flat rate from the state’s cash fund. The National Endowment of the Arts also provides funding based on an annual partnership with Colorado Creative Industries, that amount was $943,331 in fiscal year 2024. Approximately $40,000 of that budget is spent on the creative districts, but according to a spokesperson for CCI, the creative districts have been allocated an additional $210,000 in 2024.
The agency’s budget hasn’t changed in a decade, but a proposal in this year’s budget could bring the cash fund up to $2.5 million, more than doubling their overall budget. Another bill under consideration would add up to $16 million in tax incentives for community revitalization projects.
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Read moreWhen used strategically, a creative district can bring new energy and opportunities into a community, as is happening in Mancos. When it goes wrong, communities can be left without a unified sense of direction, as is happening in Trinidad. Of course, there are lots of Colorado creative communities that fall somewhere in between — stumbling between exciting new projects and major setbacks.
But flexibility is a double-edged sword.
All of the districts are required to submit quarterly reports, but some aren’t even sure what to include in those updates. Who is considered a creative in their creative district? A town like Loveland includes its brewers and barbershops, while others have stricter definitions. Furthermore, Colorado Creative Industries has yet to create standardized metrics and goals for the communities involved. And some even doubt that would be a good idea in the first place.
The bottom line: The program is designed to strategically cultivate creativity — but creativity doesn’t always square with fiscal strategy.
Begin at the beginning
In 2011, Colorado became the 10th state to introduce legislation creating a statewide creative districts program. The designation was part of a nationwide movement that took shape in the early 2000s thanks in large part to a book by urban theorist Richard Florida called “The Rise of the Creative Class.”
In short, Florida argued that cities’ economic potential depended less on established industries with large workforce capacities, like manufacturing, and increasingly on a city’s ability to attract young, entrepreneurial creators — a group he deemed the creative class.
Florida’s treatise provided a backdrop to urban planning of the time, one that was foregrounded by a research paper on creative placemaking, published in 2010 by Ann Markusen and Anne Gadwa. Their research agreed with Florida’s assertions about the benefits of a creative economy, but disagreed on the scope and size of the programs.
For Florida, the thrust of economic development was happening in urban centers. But Markusen and Gadwa envisioned a “decentralized portfolio of spaces acting as creative crucibles.” This distribution of benefits was adopted into the legislation that established the Colorado Creative Districts — specifically that districts can be found in communities from “small and rural” to “large and urban,” and will be composed of nonprofit and for-profit arts organizations.
Central to all three philosophies — that of Florida, of Markusen and Gadwa, and of the Colorado legislature — is the conviction that support for the arts will stimulate economic development. In 2006, Colorado Creative Industries — then called the Colorado Council on the Arts — had moved from the Department of Education into the Office of Economic Development and International Trade. The agency was renamed in 2010. These were strategic steps toward recognizing Colorado’s arts and culture as economic drivers.
But viewing arts and culture through the lens of economics poses two major risks.
1. One, traditional economic metrics — like tax revenue and job creation — don’t measure qualitative improvements, like whether someone feels a sense of belonging in their community, or a desire to contribute to it.
Christy Costello, deputy director of Colorado Creative Industries, said that if she had to pick one measure to demonstrate the success of a creative district it would be its partnerships — the way it is able to bring people from different industries and areas together. Whether that’s for a specific event, like the Burrofest in Mancos, or for long-term planning, like the way Carbondale Creative District collaborated with their city government on an affordable housing strategy.
2. The second, and perhaps more glaring, risk is that it doesn’t consider who is displaced in the name of development — leading some areas toward rampant property value increases and a loss of creative community, or any community, that was already established.
Let’s talk about gentrification
One of the biggest criticisms leveled against Florida’s urban-centered creative class was that it didn’t acknowledge who gets pushed out when the creative class moves in — one reporter deemed Florida “the patron saint of avocado toast.”
When Colorado Creative Districts was established, the legislature similarly trained its sights on fostering an attractive place to live and work, without much thought toward who would benefit.
One of the earliest certified districts is the River North Arts District, which gained its status in 2014 (though artists established it as an unofficial creative district nearly a decade prior). River North leveraged their designation to furiously pursue new development opportunities. The result is an incredibly vibrant arts district laden with galleries, cafes, street markets and pop-up shops — and ridiculously high rents.
In the River North district, the median home value more than doubled to $621,000 from $293,000 between 2008 and 2022, the median rent contract doubled to $2,265 from $1,146 during that same time period, and the median income in the area increased from just over $60,000 per year to over $90,000, according to five-year census data. Residential areas south and east of the core arts district show even more dramatic increases, with the median income jumping from around $37,000 to over $90,000.
Across town, the Arts District on Santa Fe has also experienced a simultaneous boom-and-bust, drawing in more people than ever while pushing out longtime residents. In the Santa Fe district, median incomes have climbed to just under $60,000 in 2022 from half that in 2008, and median rent has nearly doubled to $1,225 from $730 per month. Similar to River North, the areas immediately surrounding the district have an even wider disparity over the decade.
Of course, arts funding is hardly the main driver of rising real estate prices — that would be a lot to hang on a $10,000 grant and two blue road signs. But creative districts — official and unofficial — are often folded into larger policy strategies to squeeze new life and revenue out of an area. Gadwa and Markusen wrote that creative placemaking efforts are best suited for “areas that offer underutilized private and public capacity ripe for human ingenuity.”
But that focus on art for the sake of economic growth is changing. In recent years, the development of cultural districts has shifted into a more holistic practice, according to Ben Stone, creative placemaking director for the National Endowment of the Arts. He sees programs that increasingly account for who is benefiting from development, and how equity is woven in.
“I think this shift has run in parallel to larger shifts in community and economic development, as practitioners have shifted their focus from solely a place to a place-plus-people approach,” Stone said. “Rather than relying on metrics that show how a certain place is improving, the shift has added a focus on people’s ability to stay and benefit from the economic improvements to a place, as well as understanding that not all benefits are economic.”
Five years ago, Colorado Creative Industries started hosting focus groups and revamped its program with influence from a newer body of research, this one called “Creating Change through Arts, Culture and Equitable Development,” to better consider the current residents in a district.
Costello cited the Space to Create program, which develops mixed-use creative spaces and affordable housing units, as an example of the shift. Two developments, one in Trinidad and one in Ridgway, provided 71 new affordable housing units in their creative districts. Four more Space to Create projects — in Grand Lake, Salida, Carbondale and Grand Junction — are on their way.
“From CCI’s perspective, (gentrification) has been a focus of the technical resources that we provide to the districts, so that we can help people think about it and figure out how we can be part of the solution,” Costello said. “A lot of it is beyond our control, especially in the urban areas, but we’re trying.”
The reporting process
The other challenge for creative districts is coming up with a unified system to measure success. Creative districts are required to provide quarterly reports to Colorado Creative Industries, but what ends up on those reports varies.
“There’s no template for that. They don’t have it standardized across the state. So if you look at a different creative district, they will have set (the report) up completely differently,” said Heather Rubald, board chair of the Loveland Creative District. “I suspect it’s really more about checking the boxes and getting something filled out, just the fact that it’s submitted is enough.”
Costello probably wouldn’t go so far as to say just turning something in is “enough,” but she is quick to admit that there’s no standardized way for them to collect data.
All of the districts subscribe to a program called Creative Vitality Suite, which tracks basic metrics like the number of creative industry jobs, industry earnings and nonprofit revenues. It also provides a snapshot of the top five creative occupations in those areas — La Junta’s district has 32 cabinetmakers and carpenters, Aurora’s has 81 photographers. Besides that, it’s up to the district to decide what to include.
Aurora
Top five creative occupations:
- Photographers (81)
- Public relations (26)
- Interpreters & translators (25)
- Writers & authors (24)
- Musicians & singers (24)
Sterling
Top five creative occupations:
- Photographers (27)
- Writers & authors (13)
- Musicians & singers (12)
- Library techs (11)
- Chefs & head cooks (11)
Loveland
Top five creative occupations:
- Photographers (328)
- Writers & authors (126)
- Cabinetmakers & carpenters (94)
- Interpreters & translators (91)
- Fine artists (86)
“There’s an independence that’s really good about that, that you can throw the baby out with a bathwater if you need to,” Rubald said. “But as far as guidance goes, everybody just does it their own way.”
Colorado Creative Industries does have some ideas, though, adopted from the creative placemaking literature. Things like visitors, crime rates, vacancy rates, sales tax revenue and partnerships with civic organizations are among the suggestions that Costello rattles off.
But what is considered a major benefit in one district might not make a difference in another. Attracting new businesses to Mancos or Ridgway, for instance, could have a huge impact on the town’s economy. Other places, like Loveland, which became a designated district in 2019, already have an established arts community.
FROM LEFT: Jane DeDecker, who has been a sculptor for over 30 years, uses a shell and wax method developed by Bob Zimmerman, who originally worked in casting for automotive and computer parts in the 1960s. A handful of bronze and metal foundries have opened in Loveland since, drawing artists to the area and forming a robust community of sculptors over the years. “It’s not so much where artists sell work, but (Loveland) is where artists are working to live,” DeDecker said. “I think it’s becoming more of a destination.” Next to it is “Toy Blocks”, made of stainless steel by Kevin Robb in Loveland. The Benson Sculpture Garden, opened in 1985, spans across ten acres. (Photos by Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
FROM TOP: Jane DeDecker, who has been a sculptor for over 30 years, uses a shell and wax method developed by Bob Zimmerman, who originally worked in casting for automotive and computer parts in the 1960s. A handful of bronze and metal foundries have opened in Loveland since, drawing artists to the area and forming a robust community of sculptors over the years. “It’s not so much where artists sell work, but (Loveland) is where artists are working to live,” DeDecker said. “I think it’s becoming more of a destination.” Next to it is “Toy Blocks”, made of stainless steel by Kevin Robb in Loveland. The Benson Sculpture Garden, opened in 1985, spans across ten acres. (Photos by Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
“We are already culturally lush. So wanting the state designation is still important, but that idea of employing art and culture and creativity to enliven a derelict space is not really where we’re coming from,” Rubald said. “I think it took us extra time to get our feet underneath us because of that. We’re not able to jump in and help out a floundering bowling alley and dive bar. Nobody wants that from us.”
Instead, Loveland, whose sculptors have formed a long-established presence in the town, might push for more housing to attract younger creatives, or greater civic engagement, or more networking opportunities — all examples of priorities that people in Loveland reported.
Rubald is most excited about creating a network for entrepreneurs and small business owners. “It’s sort of that mama bear, papa bear, baby bear, Goldilocks thing. In that story it was trial and error, and probably in our story it’s trial and error too,” Rubald said. “It’s new, so I might be full of crap, but I do see that as a valuable sector in a lot of ways. They’re going to be lone wolves doing their thing, but they will need some support and some sense of community.”
Of course, pumping money into a community isn’t a guarantee that a creative economy will sprout, as frustrated residents in Trinidad are finding out. But there is something to be said about the effort, and maybe the true core of creative districts isn’t economic development, but experimentation.
“The exploratory nature of art is really crucial, the questioning nature, the focus on creating something where there was nothing,” said Stone from the National Endowment for the Arts. “Certainly when it comes to entrenched challenges — and so many of the challenges that I’ve worked on in cities are the things that have been repeated from generation to generation — it’s really important to have someone who can help you imagine a new future and come up with a brand new approach, rather than just tweaking the same inputs. Otherwise, you won’t get a new output.”
This story was updated at 9:50 a.m. on April 2, 2024, to clarify the sources of funding for Colorado Creative Industries. It was also updated to correctly identify the current Space 2 Create projects.
This story was updated at 8:30 a.m. on April 17, 2024, to correct the year the state art agency was moved to the Office of Economic Development. The shift happened in 2006.