{"id":5407,"date":"2025-03-07T19:19:49","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T19:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.com\/?p=5407"},"modified":"2025-03-07T19:20:57","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T19:20:57","slug":"ballparkdenver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.com\/news\/ballparkdenver\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballpark Denver General Improvement District funded by residents to keep community safe, clean"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>This article was originally shared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/colorado\/news\/ballpark-denver-general-improvement-district-funded-residents-safe-clean\/?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CBS News Colorado<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By Chierstin Susel | Updated on: March 6, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ballpark Denver General Improvement District funded by residents to keep community safe, clean\" width=\"1778\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Vh5AojjsKVo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Ballpark Denver General&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/ballparkdenver.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Improvement District<\/a>&nbsp;became the fifth improvement district in Denver when it was established through a special election back in November 2024. Nearly 90% of the district&#8217;s homeowners and residents chose to tax themselves in order to make the area they live and work in safer and cleaner.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Starting Monday, a team of more than a dozen ambassadors in orange and burgundy will be walking around the Ballpark District, which includes Coors Field and spans a total of 40 blocks.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The launch of the program is a long time coming for Stevenson Farnsworth, a resident and the Ballpark GID treasurer. Farnsworth helped spearhead the initiative. He has owned a home in the area since 2009, and throughout the years, he began to see a noticeable decline.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;But, when the new mayor came in and with Darrell Watson, we saw massive investment to make sure this neighborhood was livable for all folks,&#8221; Farnsworth said. &#8220;And that&#8217;s kind of what spurred this whole process.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s an overall win for the community. Some might be asking if it should fall on the backs of the residents.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Are there gaps on services? Of course,&#8221; Farnsworth said. &#8220;But we were the neighborhood in downtown that didn&#8217;t have a business improvement district or a general improvement district.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For lead ambassador Madonna Ellerbee, the initiative is personal.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t feel like my Denver,&#8221; Ellerbee said. &#8220;So I&#8217;m very committed to making this a city that people want to come to and walk around in.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ellerbee will be overseeing everything from safety escorts, to cleaning services, to the ambassador hotline residents can call for assistance.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The program also has financial contributions from partners such as the Colorado Rockies baseball team. Currently, the revenue from the GID assessment is about $1.3 million for 2025. The district&#8217;s hope is that amount will increase to $2 million annually in the coming years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article was originally shared on CBS News Colorado By Chierstin Susel | Updated on: March 6, 2025 The Ballpark Denver General&nbsp;Improvement District&nbsp;became the fifth improvement district in Denver when it was established through a special election back in November 2024. Nearly 90% of the district&#8217;s homeowners and residents chose to tax themselves in order <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.com\/news\/ballparkdenver\/\" class=\"more-link\">&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5407"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5409,"href":"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5407\/revisions\/5409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blockbyblock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}