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What's Happening in Golden - Wednesday, Feb. 5th, 2025

News and events in Golden, Colorado. Wednesday, Feb. 5th, 2025

,   and  Barb Warden
8 min read
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Blue Skies and Castle Rock

Painting by Jesse Crock
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What's happening in Golden today?

Events for Wednesday, Feb. 5th

Golden History Tours
Toddler Time - Registration Required

For more information, click the item above or visit the Golden Today Calendar

6:30PM Planning Commission @ City Hall

Work Plan
The Planning Commission will review their accomplishments for 2024 and discuss their goals for 2025.

Their 2024 accomplishments include continued work on rewriting the zoning code, establishing a fast-track procedure for affordable housing projects; adding bike lanes to Ford Street (10th to 14th), add a sidewalk to Pinal Road, and installing flashing crossing lights, and increasing speed management in residential neighborhoods; adding signs to point the way to parking, and continuing to have parking managed by a third party vendor.

"Downtown parking requirements will be impacted by state legislation that limits the ability of municipalities to require parking for new multifamily properties in high frequency transit areas."

Their goals for 2025 include rezoning the Golden Terrace Mobile Home Park to ensure that it will continue to be used as a mobile home park. Staff will be rewriting the City's Comprehensive Plan. They will initiate a Transporation Demand Management Plan, with the goal "to reduce single-occupancy vehicle trips, particularly in Downtown Golden."

See the meeting packet for more about their goals.

Comprehensive Plan
Staff has been holding public meetings to gather input for a new version of the comprehensive plan. Tonight's meeting memo shows some of the early responses.

10AM-5PM Free Day @ Buffalo Bill Museum


The Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave is one of the most popular cultural and historic attractions in the Denver and Golden metro areas. Over 80,000 guests tour the museum annually and half a million people visit the gravesite and enjoy the breath-taking views from the museum’s observation deck.

Come learn about William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, one of the most famous people of his time, and his Wild West show. See for yourself why he wanted to be buried on top of Lookout Mountain.

Visit the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave on the first Wednesday of the month through April and enjoy free admission.

More information

Buffalo Bill Museum & Grave
987½ Lookout Mountain Road (map)

5PM Apres Wednesday @ The Golden Mill


Join us every Wednesday through the end of March for live music, great food and drink specials, swag and Loveland lift ticket giveaways, and much more!

More information

Golden Mill
1012 Ford Street (map)

Live Music for Wednesday, Feb. 5th

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For more information, visit the Golden Today Calendar

Golden History: The Century-Long Battle for Parking Continues

The Hested's Department Store stood vacant at 13th and Washington from 1977-2006
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For the past few days I’ve been musing about how automobiles have changed the shape of our built-before-cars downtown. On Sunday, I talked about the 1920s through the early ’50’s and our quest to provide ever-more parking spots on our streets. On Monday, I covered the rise of parking lots, 1950-1970. Yesterday‘s post reviewed some of the buildings we lost in the quest to build parking lots.

After more than half a century of scrambling to provide enough parking for their customers, downtown business owners got some unwanted relief in the 1980s. Shoppers’ tastes were changing. They didn’t want to shop in a traditional downtown anymore–they wanted to go to shopping malls. One by one, our downtown stores closed. By some counts, half of our storefronts were empty by 1990. Our downtown hotel–the Holland House–closed and stood empty. There were few restaurants, few stores, and few reasons to visit downtown. This was happening to small towns all over the country.

Golden fought back.

  • We voted to form a Golden Urban Renewal Authority, which used tax incentive deals to finance visual and infrastructure upgrades.
  • The Golden Civic Foundation bought some of the empty buildings and selected developers to refurbish and reopen them as viable businesses.
  • The Golden Chamber began hosting downtown events almost every weekend.
  • The merchants agreed to fund a tourism program (Visit Golden).
  • Community leaders raised funds to build a Visitors Center.
  • The City developed the Creek and built a golf course to help attract tourists.
  • Many, many citizens undertook all sorts of volunteer efforts aimed at making Golden a vibrant, viable city again.

It all worked: Golden is as viable as all get-out. Our downtown has never been as crowded as it is today. Our population is climbing steadily, Mines is growing rapidly; Coors in on a growth spurt, and we attract thousands of tourists every month. Most of them arrive in cars and most of them need places to park. For the first time since the 1950s, people are circling, looking for parking spaces.

The City finally installed the parking meters that we’ve been discussing since the 1930s (only now we call them kiosks). Then they hired a company to write parking tickets. Suddenly our long-fought-for stock of downtown parking is a cash cow.

In 2021, the city made $57,738 from the parking pay stations and $0 from parking violation fines.

In 2024, they made approximately $180,000 from the pay stations and $270,000 from parking violation fines.

Despite the ongoing demand for parking and the profit it brings into the City coffers, the City Planners are working to reduce the number of available parking spots. They want to discourage people from driving downtown by removing parking spaces and adding bike racks and wider sidewalks.

Left - Current (diagonal) parking Arapahoe Street | Right - Reversion to parallel parking as shown in the City's West Downtown Plan.

Strong pushback from the merchants (who still want their customers to be able to park) has made the planners reconsider the Arapahoe Street plan, and it is now rumored that they plan to keep the diagonal parking.

However, they are redesigning Jackson Street, and their current plan is to eliminate 52 parking spaces on the east side of downtown. They're also considering a plan to convert some or all of the Astor House/Miners Alley parking lot into a seating area.

Will bike racks and parking tickets encourage more people to go car-less? Maybe. Can we start to give up our hard-won parking spaces? I have my doubts, but we’ll see. Even after a century, we haven’t fully solved the parking conundrum.

Weather

Overnight's Weather

Overnight: Mostly clear. Low around 22, with temperatures rising to around 26 overnight. West wind around 18 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.

Wednesday's Weather

Wednesday: Sunny. High near 61, with temperatures falling to around 57 in the afternoon. West wind 15 to 24 mph, with gusts as high as 37 mph.

Wednesday Night's Weather

Wednesday Night: Mostly clear. Low around 36, with temperatures rising to around 40 overnight. West southwest wind 9 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph.

Wednesday Night: Mostly Clear, 36°F

Thursday: Sunny, 53°F

Thursday Night: Mostly Clear, 34°F

Friday: Mostly Sunny, 59°F

Friday Night: Chance Light Rain then Chance Rain And Snow, 35°F

Saturday: Chance Light Snow, 49°F

Saturday Night: Chance Light Snow, 23°F

Sunday: Slight Chance Light Snow, 38°F

Sunday Night: Partly Cloudy then Slight Chance Light Snow, 20°F

Monday: Chance Light Snow, 34°F

Monday Night: Chance Light Snow, 15°F

Tuesday: Chance Light Snow, 31°F

Supporters

Many thanks to the people and organizations who support What’s Happening in Golden?  If you would like to support local news, please CLICK HERE!

Sponsors:
($100/month and up)
Buffalo Rose, Buglet Solar, Foothills Art Center, Golden City Brewery, Golden Cultural Alliance, Miners Alley Performing Arts Center, The Golden Mill, Golden Chamber of Commerce, Golden History Tours, Miners Saloon, Golden Hayride Outpost, Unite Fitness, Tom Reiley, and Michael Mason

Friends:
($50-99.99/month or $550/yr)
Tall Pines Painting, Baby Doe’s Clothing, Goozell Yogurt & Coffee Paul Haseman, Donna Anderson, Carol & Doug Harwood, Beth Bidwell, Stephanie Painter, Greg Poulos, Ann Norton & Jonathan Storer, Mary & Don Parker, Saré Merrigan, The Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, Joy Brandt, and Vic DeMaria

Supporters:
($25-49.99/month or $250/yr)
Laura King and Scott Wilson, Bobby German and Alison McNally, Forrest Jones, Barry & Liz Bettis, Cheryl & Tom Schweich, Marjorie Sloan, Chris and Joyce Davell, Rick Flint, Forrest Jones, AC Development, Cynthia Merrill Tamny, Stephen Pero, Meg Van Ness & Steve Kalasz, Steve & Karla Schaefer, Bud Rockhill, Steve Enger, Kristie Brice & Mike Schwartz, and The Golden Hotel

Members:
($10-24.99/month or $110/yr)
Brad Miller & Julie Bartos, Holly Thomas, Jim and LouAnne Dale, Ann Pattison, Thomas Hoffman, Carol Abel, Brian Quarnstrom, Sandra Curran, Bobby German and Alison McNally, Kathy Smith, Karen Smith, Carlos & Nancy Bernal, Robert Storrs, Michele Sannes, Elaine Marolla, Dixie Termin & Ron Miller, E Tom Hughes, Crystal M Culbert, Patrick A. Madison, Alice Madison & Jim Kalivas, Deb Goeldner, Christopher Ball, 6th Chair Home Services, Dot & Eric Brownson, Rosemary Coffman, Emeline Paulson, Sandy Schneider, Mark and Cathy Pattridge, Cheryl G Leidich, Jen Rutter, Frani R Bickart, Jennings and Litz, Bill Sedgeley, Nancy Hughes, Justin L Wade, Kathi Eggers, Traci Case, Donna Owen, Leslie D Lutz, Karen Oxman, Catherine Skokan, Ross Fraser & KC Gilliland, Lynne Haigh, Elizabeth Hilliard, Frank Young & Terre Deegan-Young, Kathy Hirons & Jack Markin, Jess & Anthony Monasterio, Ella Lyons & Jeanne Fritch, Heather Duncan, Lee Ann & Pete Horneck, Carol Cameron, Cheryl Williamson, San Daugherty, Jim Garner, John and Carol McEncroe, the Golden Welcome Center, the Golden Transcript, Koshare Eagle, Ken and Colleen Krantz, Traci Neuman Lacey, Jo Barber, Jamie Cookinham, Kermit Shields, Meridee Cecil, Vicki Olson, Colleen & Michael Ramey, Nancy & Pete Torpey, Jax Baker, Simon Maybury, John & Carol McEncroe, Rose McLaughlin, and Cameron Chambers

Followers:
($5-9.99/month)
Golden Community Garden, Lora Haimes, Mariane Erickson, J.J. Fraser

Highlights