Opinion & Commentary

For a while, it looked like Walmart had Denver in the bag. But now, developers are going back to the drawing board…or at least the calender. After Denver City Council reps Mary Beth Susman and Jeanne Robb announced they opposed tax-increment financing for the project, the Colorado Boulevard Healthcare District…

When Westword debuted in September 1977, pundits around town were predicting the demise of the paper. People gave it a month, a week, a year at most. After all, the only business more risky than starting a restaurant was starting a newspaper. And a free newspaper? Forget it…

The first edition of Westword hit the streets of Denver in September 1977. Over the past 35 years, Westword has gone through many changes — as has the publishing industry in general, and the alternative newspaper industry in particular. But our basic mission has not changed: to cover (and sometimes…

For over a year, neighbors and stakeholders in the area just northeast of downtown — the edge of the Ballpark neighborhood, Curtis Park, Five Points — have been discussing how to improve this part of town. They’ve come up with some answers, and one big question: Why is Sonny Lawson…

While the area around the new University of Colorado Health Sciences Center is booming, the buildings CU left behind a decade ago stand abandoned, and the property is now on its third developer. The city is ready for something, anything, to go there. Well, maybe not anything, say the Walmartyrs…

The former home of Su Teatro is about to start a second act. Make that third act — the building at 4275 High Street was originally the Elyria Elementary School, then became the base for the theater company founded by Tony Garcia. But for the last few years the empty…

Colorado is the purplest of states, with voters almost equally divided between Democrat, Republican and unaffiliated, and Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in a dead heat here. But there’s another contest that also shows the red state/blue state pull: The debate over Walmart and Trader Joe’s…

Federico Pena — one-time state legislator, mayor of Denver from 1983-1991, and former director of both the federal Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy for President Bill Clinton — is now in private business. But as national campaign co-chair for Obama for America, he’ll join other Latino leaders…

Not all brainstorms are as mind-blowing as Chipotle, the fast-casual chain that Steve Ells founded in Colorado two decades ago. Some brainstorms are really more of a trickle. Brainstorms like the BevBuckle, which will land a local inventor on the season premiere of ABC’s Shark Tank tonight…

Steve Ells was looking for a fast way to make money when he took $85,000 from his father and plunked it into an old Dolly Madison ice cream store near DU, where he served a hip variation on the big burritos he’d seen at taquerias in San Francisco. And the…

With rain finally pouring down, it’s much easier to think about water conservation than it has been through this long, hot summer. So former Governor Bill Ritter picked a perfect time to host a teleconference for the 90 By 20 Campaign, which is aimed at reducing usage across the Colorado…

The Rossonian Hotel turns 100 this year, and so far, there hasn’t been much to celebrate. This former hotel in the very heart of Five Points, at the intersection of five streets in Denver’s historic black neighborhood, was once filled with the sounds of the country’s greatest jazz talent. But…

I learned the power of search-engine optimization early, when a column I wrote in 1996 about the Bill Clinton strategist who’d just resigned after news broke that he’d sucked the toes of a prostitute included the phrase “toe-sucking Dick Morris” — with the two words in the middle a particular…

.Last night, I was sitting at a picnic bench in the Sculpture Park at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, looking past the crowds at Westword’s Dish event to Sports Authority Field at Mile High, the site of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination on the last…

When accepting the presidential nomination at the 2012 DNC in Charlotte tonight, Barack Obama will speak at the Time Warner Convention Center, a quick switch from the Bank of America stadium. The official reason for the move is weather, although conspiracy theorists have their own ideas, including too many empty…

As the Democratic National Convention gets under way in Charlotte today, it’s impossible not to recall Denver’s time in the spotlight as the host of the 2008 DNC — and contemplate its role as a key swing state in this campaign. Dick Wadhams was the chair of the Colorado Republican…

In celebrity-shy Colorado, a president’s son definitely qualifies. While the first President George Bush was in the White House, George Walker’s little brother Neil lived in Denver, where he got embroiled in an S&L scandal known as Silverado. But Neil’s fame — and infamy — here is nothing compared to…

There were many great moments for Denver during the 2008 Democratic National Convention, which four years ago filled this city with hope and lots of spare change. But for many of us, none was as deeply satisfying as finally plopping our collective asses into the plastic seats of what was…