The other day I was at the Evans School for a stakeholder meeting about design of the 5280 Trail. In 2021, voters passed $7 million in bond funding for the design and construction of these first two blocks along Acoma Street between 10th and 12th Avenue. Most of the 30 people in the room were business or property owners along the Trail stretch, and while several possible street arrangements were being debated, there was one essential point of agreement: the Golden Triangle will soon be Denver’s densest neighborhood. While this observation was said in various ways, one specific remark stuck with me as I biked home. One of the stakeholders was part of the team behind a recent, eye-catching hotel along Colfax Avenue; while talking about the urban character of the trail, he remarked that the soon-to-materialize density would make the Golden Triangle, “Denver’s Manhattan.” 

There are some merits to this comparison. The Golden Triangle is, metaphorically, a bit of an island, separated from mainland Denver by Broadway, Colfax, and Speer. Like Manhattan, the Golden Triangle is home to some of the most important civic spaces in the state: the Denver City and County Building, Civic Center Park, the Central Branch of Denver Public Library, the Art Museum, etc. But comparing our residential density to that of Manhattan, does that comparison hold any water?

The Golden Triangle has all the ingredients necessary for high density, relatively speaking: it’s small, comprising only 179 acres, or .28 square miles. The D-GT zone district allows for high-rise construction up to 30 stories tall. In 2022, after a boomlet of apartment construction the US Census Bureau determined the population density of the Golden Triangle as 11,800 persons per square mile. That’s in the top quartile of Denver’s Census tracts, but just below the density of the southwest neighborhood of Westwood, so not particularly high. However, the neighborhood was and is building new housing at an incredible pace. In 2022, the Census Bureau counted 2,399 total homes, with an average household size of 1.6 persons per household. By 2030 we could see an additional 4,044 homes for the neighborhood. That considers all the additional housing constructed, currently under construction, or proposed and on track to breaking group since 2022. This means that in the near future, there might well be 6,443 new homes in our little “island” in Denver. If the average household size stays consistent in this more populated neighborhood, we could expect to count 10,300 residents by 2030, and that would mean a population density of 36,817 persons per square mile (ppsm). By 2030, at 36,817 ppsm, the Golden Triangle will become Denver’s new densest Census tract… though not by much!

In 2022, the US Census Bureau determined the population density of the area around Little Raven Street between Cherry Creek and 20th Street as 32,366.7 ppsm, which anointed it the current densest Census tract in the city. However, it’s hard to imagine more homes being built in this sliver of land. Meanwhile, by 2030 in the Golden Triangle, a high number of opportunity sites for new high-rise construction still remain. Before the sudden spike in interest rates, a handful more housing developments were proposed for the Golden Triangle. They have since been withdrawn from the City’s permitting process or been marked inactive… but let’s push into a world of imagination and say those projects are magically resuscitated. In that magic world, we’d see an additional 1,500 homes in the Golden Triangle by 2030. If those were all occupied at 1.6 persons per household each, Golden Triangle would then house 45,542 ppsm. That would establish it as the undisputed, highest density neighborhood in Denver, though still doesn’t measure up to the island of Manhattan, which in 2022 had an estimated population density of 74,000 ppsm.

But then again, we can fiddle with the numbers! About 9 square blocks of Golden Triangle are currently taken by government institutions including the Mint, the City and County Building, and the Art Museum, as well as Civic Center Park, and the connected roadways. What if we subtract those blocks from our denominator? The residential swath of neighborhood that remains is only 1/5th of a square mile, and equates to a population density of 60,518 ppsm. Is that Manhattan-level density? Well… Still a no. 

But then again! Maybe the developer didn’t mean that we’d have any one spot in Denver with an equivalent population density to that of America’s densest city. Maybe he meant, “Denver’s Manhattan,” as in the proportional jump in population density compared to the rest of the city, like how the island of Manhattan is far denser than New York City at large. Citywide, New York has an population density of 29,302.7 ppsm, only 40% the density of the island of Manhattan. In the realistic scenario we’ve described for Denver in 2030, the projected increase in citywide population would lead to a citywide density ~5,250 ppsm, only 14% the population density of the future populated Golden Triangle.

So there is a point to be made here! If in 2030, a recent transplant from the Upper East Side of Manhattan (100,000 ppsm) wouldn’t think much of the urban experience in the Golden Triangle, a resident from Denver’s East Colfax neighborhood would! And the essential point remains—Denver’s Golden Triangle is experiencing rapid growth and densification. Life in the neighborhood will look and feel very different in the years to come. So, with all those people, maybe they deserve a couple blocks of car-free, park-like streets? Unfortunately, that is still up for debate.