Residents of the Mill Street neighborhood on the south end of downtown, organized as the Mill Street Community Benefits All Coalition, are urging Colorado Springs City Council to withhold approval of a Colorado Springs Urban Renewal Authority (CSURA) plan.
The plan would use around $10.3 million of taxpayer money to subsidize construction of a luxury Catbird Hotel. The group wants the council to withhold approval until the developers sign a Community Benefits Agreement mitigating impacts on nearby residents.
“The Mill Street Neighborhood and its coalition partners will be asking City Council at its Feb. 24 meeting to delay approval of the Moreno and Cascade Urban Renewal Area until Norwood [Development Group] sits down to negotiate a legally binding Community Benefit Agreement with the neighborhood,” the Coalition said in a Feb. 11 statement.
Norwood did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Norwood is a major force in Colorado Springs and the downtown area. Its website cites $2.3 billion in downtown investment including hotels, apartments, restaurants and offices – plus $327 million in “tourism investment” including downtown’s Weidner Field, Ed Robson Arena, and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum.
CSURA’s website states it “is committed to curing blight by helping to deliver a range of benefits to include quality jobs, attainable and affordable housing, market rate housing, and missing amenities.”
As a CSURA project, this development would use tax increment financing (TIF), which captures anticipated future tax revenues to offset current costs of development. It lowers cost and risk for the developer.
An article published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy summarizes the pros and cons of using TIF for urban renewal. “Municipal leaders say TIF is one of the most important tools they have to regenerate urban areas … But critics say TIF has become little more than a subsidy for the private sector, diverting revenue away from schools and other important services.”
The Coalition said that while Norwood originally engaged in dialogue around mitigating impacts on the neighborhood from the development, the talks broke down in September.
“Mill Street is a historically working-class neighborhood, providing naturally occurring affordable housing to many of the city’s essential workers, and luxury developments like Catbird threaten to raise housing costs and displace longtime residents,” the Coalition said. “Mill Street believes that the lucrative public subsidy through URA should be contingent on developers providing meaningful benefits to affected neighborhoods.”
“Through a Community Benefit Agreement, Mill Street is aiming to win resources to preserve housing affordability, prevent displacement of neighbors, and create new affordable housing in the neighborhood,” it said.
The Coalition said rising property values are already pushing residents out. It gave a statement to the Pikes Peak Bulletin on Dec. 29:
“The Mill Street neighborhood is Colorado Springs’ oldest working-class neighborhood, originally home to workers at the Broadmoor Hotel, servants to estates in the Old North End, and laborers at the nearby mill, and it continues to house many of the city’s essential workers to this day. Mill Street neighbors teach our city’s kids, treat our patients, bag our groceries, serve our coffee, and take care of our elders. It’s a friendly, diverse, working-class neighborhood and we like it that way.
“But today, the Mill Street we know and love is at risk – historically an affordable place to live, prices in the neighborhood are rising rapidly as upscale development takes over on the south end of downtown. In a 2022 survey of more than 70 Mill Street residents, 58% said they were concerned about being displaced, and pressure has only increased since then.”
Norwood’s partnership with the CSURA includes building “attainable housing” as a second phase after hotel construction. “Attainable housing” generally means housing priced for middle-income households, which may earn too much for subsidized housing but not enough for market rate. Phase 2 would include about $3.2 million in additional urban renewal subsidy, according to a presentation given to City Council in January.
For more information, see our Jan. 7 article “Downtown neighborhood seeks dialogue with Norwood Development.”
Editor’s note Feb. 25: The first paragraph was updated for clarity.
