A LOOK BACK

• Timeline Slide Show

• Reminiscing about Boulder 1
• Reminiscing about Boulder 2
• Reminiscing about Boulder 3

• Boulder Comes of Age

• Pearl Street Celebrates 25 Years as a Pedestrain Mall

• Local Musicians Make Music and History

By Wendy Underhill

Downtown Boulder is alive and well, thank you. In fact, it’s thriving and enjoying its reputation as having one of the country’s few surviving pedestrian malls. This summer, Pearl Street Mall turns 25 and hosts a birthday bash to which all are welcome.

In 1859, however, the downtown was a mere cluster of log cabins at Pearl Street and Broadway, then called 12th Street. A decade later, the area became a trading hub for Gold Hill, Ward and other mountain mining communities, as well as an agricultural center. Commerce, community and the county seat brought people downtown—as they still do today.

By the early 1900s, the downtown adopted a decidedly proper—albeit progressive—tone. Brick buildings replaced many original wooden structures, and concrete sidewalks replaced the “undressed flagstone” that had served for 25 years on residential streets (and still does on some). Substantial churches arose: First Presbyterian Church in 1896, St. John’s Episcopal Church in 1905 and First Congregational Church in 1908. Since Boulder was quickly becoming a tourist destination, the elegant Hotel Boulderado opened in 1909, catering to an upscale clientele.

As the downtown grew, other buildings were constructed. These included the Boulder County Courthouse, which was rebuilt and reopened in 1933 after fire destroyed the original in 1932; the Boulder Theater, which opened on 14th Street in 1936; and additional churches—First Baptist in 1926, Trinity Lutheran in 1929 and First Church of Christ Scientist in 1931—which created a “church row” between Spruce and Pine streets.

Commerce, community and county government, but particularly commerce, continued to reign in subsequent decades. Local historian Jane Valentine Barker, born in Boulder in 1930, has personal ties to the downtown area. Her grandfather came to Boulder in 1905 to work at Wilson’s Hardware on the southwest corner of Broadway and Pearl Street. Within three years, he’d bought the store and renamed it Valentine’s Hardware. The family, including Barker in an auxiliary role, managed the store until they sold it in 1970. The downtown of her youth was “a place where you’d go down the street and know most of the people you met,” Barker says. One of her sweetest memories is of Alba Dairy’s ice cream parlor on Broadway just north of Pearl Street. Describing the sundaes in mouth-watering detail, she says it was “big stuff” to go there after a movie at the Boulder Theater.

Rick Rippberger wandered the downtown area a generation after Barker. From the 1950s to 1986, his grandparents, parents, aunt and uncle owned Crowder’s Jewelry Store at 1215 Pearl St. “You knew everybody by name,” he says, including the Reinerts, who ran Reinert’s clothing store (later Cottrell’s and now the site of Banana Republic), the Valentines and Ralph Potter, who owned Potter’s Drugstore, one door west of Crowder’s. Potter kept an eye on young Rippberger while his parents worked evenings at Crowder’s. In 1974, Potter’s son closed the drugstore and reopened it as Potter’s, one of a handful of the era’s singles’ bars. In 1983, he sold it to Rippberger. Although Potter’s closed in the ’90s, Rippberger and his wife have owned Art Mart at 1222 Pearl St. since 1989.

A Pearl of an Idea

Pearl Street Mall was the biggest thing to happen to downtown Boulder since the rebuilt courthouse opened in 1933. It was 1977 and “malls were the thing in cities,” says then-city councilman Greg Lefferdink. In the early ’70s, “you could practically shoot a cannon off in downtown and not hit anybody,” he recalls. In reality, downtown Boulder had always been a serviceable mix of retail stores, churches, food establishments, and municipal and civic services. But it suffered a financial blow when Crossroads Mall opened in 1963. With Crossroads’ survival now in question, it’s ironic to think it was once considered a threat to downtown’s economic vitality. But when J.C. Penney relocated from Pearl Street to Crossroads Mall, it was a wake-up call for downtown businesses.

With the aid of a federal grant and collaboration between the city, businesses and other interests, Pearl Street was closed to vehicles in June 1976 and redesigned as a pedestrian mall. The street itself was replaced with walkways between 15th and 11th streets, and the mall officially opened in August 1977. At the same time, historic preservation came into vogue and many of the area’s older buildings were renovated. Mid-century trappings, such as corrugated metal, were stripped off storefronts, giving the mall a classic historical look.

The new pedestrian mall changed downtown Boulder’s retail mix. “A hardware store on the mall wasn’t really logical,” Barker says of Valentine’s inevitable demise. “Times just changed—that’s the way it went.” Gradually, the five-and-dimes, groceries and other retail stores of the past gave way to art galleries, specialty shops and trendy restaurants.

Although these shops and restaurants enliven the mall’s social scene, they accounts for only 30 percent of its square footage. Fifty-two percent is devoted to private offices, such as those on the second and third floors above Pearl Street shops. The remaining 18 percent is devoted to city and county offices, and non-office/retail entities including churches, the bus depot, the police annex and others.

The resulting mix ensures the mall is bustling seven days a week. In addition, 40 residential units are being built at 13th Street and Canyon Boulevard, fueling an urban trend that adds yet another element to downtown’s composition.

A diverse downtown is good, but business isn’t absolutely booming these days. On the retail side, an average 5-percent vacancy rate in 2002 (compared to 2 or 3 percent in previous years) is nothing to worry about, says Jane Jenkins, director of Downtown Boulder Inc. and the Downtown Boulder Business Improvement District. But the current 12-percent vacancy rate for office space “is a number we don’t like to see,” she adds.

Looking at the bigger picture, however, Boulder is doing relatively well. Pedestrian malls are still located in Aspen, Colo., Burlington, Vt., Charlottesville, Va., and Santa Monica, Calif., but other cities, such as Kalamazoo, Mich.—site of the country’s first pedestrian mall—have scrapped their malls and reinstalled roads. Here, we wouldn’t dream of that. Instead, the city is planning a summer-long Pearl Street Mall 25th birthday celebration, complete with free concerts, fairs, community get-togethers and other activities. The celebration is significant, as Boulder has one of the country’s few remaining pedestrian malls, says Molly Winter, director of Downtown and University Hill Management Division and Parking Services.

Alternative Plans

Transportation is one reason for downtown Boulder’s continued economic success. City transportation coordinator Jan Ward oversees different transportation modes—pedestrians, buses, bikes and cars—to ensure economic vitality. To that end, the city offers free bus passes to full-time employees of businesses in the Downtown Boulder Business Improvement District, nearly half of whom use something other than their cars to commute. In fact, Boulder has the highest percentage of people who use alternative transportation, such as buses, bikes, pedestrians and carpools, of any city its size in the nation. Consequently, parking spaces are freed for visitors and retail customers.

Spokes for Folks is a small but unique part of the transportation plan. During summer, green-painted bikes are available for anyone to use. When you’re finished with one, simply leave it in the nearest rack for another person. Local high school students maintain the donated bikes and the one rule is don’t park the bike in your garage and forget about it. Ward says the beauty of this bike-borrowing plan is “it’s simple and free.” Indeed, biking in and around downtown Boulder is practically hassle-free, with abundant bike lanes that connect to main commuter paths (such as Boulder Creek Path) and plentiful bike racks, including ones made of recycled automobile steering wheels—a Boulder original.

Although bikes and buses are great, cars are here to stay. “The reality is when people want to park [downtown], they want to park right in front of where they’re going,” Winter says. To accommodate them, new parking structures have sprung up on the mall’s outskirts, the most recent at 1500 Pearl St. These user-friendly structures incorporate windows, historical displays, easy access to offices at each level and retail street-side businesses that help the parking garage blend with its environment.

Putting On a Fresh Face

Parking and transportation are necessities. It’s the tangibles and intangibles that make Boulder’s downtown viable, Winter says. These include pleasant weather, dazzling flowers, mature shade trees, the parade of people, an ever-changing montage of things to see and do (including buskers—today’s entertainment entrepreneurs) and the mall’s overall design, which keeps evolving.

This summer, downtown denizens will see the results of a $4-million Pearl Street Mall upgrade that’s essentially an end-to-end tweaking. For instance, in an effort to integrate the mall’s east and west ends, curbs are being brought back to their original street-side positions, trees will be trimmed and bus shelters removed. New 20-foot pylons with welcoming banners will provide visual definition.

A variety of whimsical, yet functional changes will also occur. The 1100 block will have a new fountain and two additional rocks-as-sculptures. The children’s play area in the 1200 block will have a new bridge with artful animal sculptures, and some planters will be modified to make room for emergency vehicles. In the 1300 block, a fabric tarp will provide sun protection for events on the courthouse plaza, and a new, pop-jet fountain will delight the kids. New public restrooms on this block, complete with tiling and piped-in classical music, create a tony atmosphere. In the 1400 block, the children’s animal sculptures will be relocated into a sunken area, and a conceptual map of Boulder County that you can walk through and sit on will provide context for visitors and residents alike.

Each block will boast permanent history panels featuring photographs and a narrative by local historian Silvia Pettem. The panels will showcase information on the downtown area, Pearl Street Mall, the University of Colorado, Boulder County’s agricultural and mining communities, and other relevant topics.

Think of these upgrades as birthday gifts to the mall from a city that loves its colorful kaleidoscope of commerce, community and the county seat. Happy birthday Pearl Street Mall—your party should be a ball!

Go to top