Denver Neighborhoods - Historic City Park

With 205 urban parks and 20,000 acres of land in the nearby mountains, Denver offers the nation’s largest park system, comprising more acres than Manhattan itself. Yet in the early years, many Denver residents didn't see the need for such parks. As one historian wrote in 1901, “It is quite probable that if anyone had suggested to them the actual need for city parks on their plats, they would have concluded that a far greater and immediate one existed for a small asylum for insane advisers.”

Initially proposed in 1878, City Park took some time to develop. First, they needed the land, which they purchased from the public school system at a bargain price. After money was raised, the transients who claimed the area with meager tents and ramshackle abodes had to be ejected. Landscaping issues with weeds, no water, and a vast treeless plain also beckoned. And then there was transportation: with City Park well beyond the outskirts of town at the time, public transportation was a key ingredient to both settlement and local use of the park.

The Gay 90’s ushered in City Park’s heyday. Boats and canoes were the most popular concession, including a six-passenger Swan Boat and the 50-foot steamship Miss Denver. Children could enjoy pony rides or the miniature Lake Shores Locomotive for just a nickel. For twenty five cents, Indian Camp was also nearby, with Native American teepees and dances, as tribesmen delighted crowds by knocking dimes off a far away platform with a bow and arrow. Other visitors ambled over to the speedway to watch world records being set in harness racing and automobile contests. A zoo was constructed on park grounds just east of the popular museum of natural history. And all could enjoy the spectacular Electric Fountain spraying 4400 gallons of water a minute up to 90 feet into the air through 2,100 nozzles as crowds sat by the lily pond listening to Sunday afternoon concerts sponsored by the Denver Tramway Company.

Little surprise that the area around City Park became a popular residence for turn-of-the-century Denver elite. Mansions sprung up on the western edge of the park, populated by bankers, lawyers, and real estate men. The prestigious East High School -- which had already graduated silent film swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Oscar award winning Hattie McDaniel from "Gone With the Wind,” and Antoinette Perry, the eponym for the Tony Award – moved eastward along with the general population, landing at its present location just south of City Park in 1925.

Changing public priorities, increased racial tensions, and the advent of an automobile culture eroded some of the early excitement of the park. The residential portions became more decidedly middle-class, and small offices gave the area a mixed-use character. Still the park remains the area’s central gathering point. Revitalized by an active pavilion, popular lake, and weekly Sunday Night Jazz concerts, the neighborhood retains many of the features that made it such an attractive, if then distant, destination over a hundred years ago.

July 2008 Market Statistics

In metro Denver closed sales in July were 5,123 compared with 4,980 in July 2007, a 2.9% gain. The average selling price for the period was $262,224 compared to an average in July 2007 of $289,294, a percentage drop of 9.4. The median sale price for single-family homes was $229,200 compared with $255,000 in July 2007, for a drop of 10.1%. 969 condos and townhomes sold in July 2008, compared with 1,081 for the same period in 2007, a drop of 10.4%. Median prices for condos in July 2008 were $149,000 compared with $158,000 in July 2008, a drop of 5.7%. For single family houses, condos and townhomes the average number of days a house was on the market in July 2008 was 98, and in July 2007 was 95. The list to sale ratio was 97% in 2008 versus 98% in 2007. 25,673 houses are currently on the market and interest rates are still low. It’s a great time to buy in the Denver real estate market, but if you’re a seller you may want to wait till conditions improve.

Check out the current Market Conditions Report for further analysis.