Creating a vibrant community space by revitalizing Denver’s Central Platte Valley through River Restoration and Urban Development.
Creating Denver’s Open Space Jewel
Commons ParkDenver, CO–USA
Commons Park, a 19-acre urban oasis nestled along the South Platte River, stands out as one of Denver’s most cherished public spaces. Its unique blend of natural beauty and urban vibrancy has made it a dynamic hub that seamlessly integrates the riverfront and surrounding greenspace into the heart of downtown. Formerly an industrial railyard, Commons Park includes roughly 12 acres of restored wetland, riparian and upland native habitats, pavilions, river access points, art installations, an Aids Memorial, a Lakota Blessing Place, and more.
Year
2001
Client
The City and County of Denver
Services
Vision Planning, Urban Design, Landscape Architecture
Project type/category
Civic/Municipal, Parks & Recreation
Awards
ASLA Landmark Award (2018), ASLA Vision and Ethics in City Building Award (2002), ASLA Colorado Merit Award (2002), Downtown Denver Partnership Annual Award (2001)
Commons Park, the verdant 19-acre jewel in Downtown Denver, has been celebrated as one of the city’s most appreciated landmarks. Once a neglected railyard, Commons Park is a testament to the transformative power urban green spaces can have on a community.
Beginning in 1989, Civitas led a pro-bono effort to call attention to the Central Platte Valley, an active but declining railroad yard adjacent to downtown. The vision was to create a new system of parks surrounding the South Platte River, connecting neighborhoods, people, and nature and catalyzing the creation of a dense, mixed-use urban destination. Over a multi-year period, the advocacy caught the attention of then-Mayor Wellington Webb, who engaged Civitas to explore the idea with the public and stakeholders. After three years of community dialogue, programming, and conceptual design, the park concept took form.
In the decades before Commons Park was established, the South Platte riverbanks had been artificially filled, obliterating the subtle terracing that otherwise forms along river banks and burying natural wetlands, oxbows, and habitat. To rebuild a more stable ecosystem, Civitas had to restore these wetlands by lowering the existing grades by 18 feet, allowing groundwater (including Spring runoff from Lower Downtown) to collect, which provided enough moisture to sustain not only a renewed wetland but also a moist riparian meadow and a native forest of cottonwood trees—resembling the landscape originally found along the river’s edge.
The resulting 19-acre Commons Park is a diverse and dynamic landscape with over 10 acres of habitat restoration, wetlands that buffer and cleanse stormwater, upland songbird habitats, and a half-mile reconstructed river bottom to support aquatic habitat and boating. As project principal Mark Johnson once wrote, Commons Park “has an urban edge that addresses the needs of the city. Yet, a substantial portion of the park is planted in native grasses, shrubs, and wetlands to meet the needs of the river.”
Civitas has worked on over 30 initiatives throughout Denver’s Central Platte Valley to restore the river and engage the community in a new urban ecology. With a vision to turn the valley into a walkable center that would attract people to visit, live, work, and play, giving life back to the Platte River so that it could bring life back to the city of Denver.
