Downtown population doubled, retail sales broke a half-billion dollars, and more than 800 arts/culture/sports events took place downtown in 2025. These are just a few highlights of the highlights Downtown Partnership CEO Chelsea Gondeck shares from the State of Downtown Colorado Springs 2026 Report.

Note: we discussed the “rumored” sale of Poor Richard’s in this episode, apparently just minutes before the sale was announced.

LINKS:

2026 State of Downtown Report: https://downtowncs.com/sod

Front Range Passenger Rail Community Q&A: Downtown Partnership of Colorado Springs:

https://www.mobilize.us/ridethefrontrange/event/927199/?followup_modal_context=email_shift_followup_other_events

April 17, 5:30 to 7 pm at Kinship Landing

Become a patron of Studio 809 Podcasts: https://www.patreon.com/join/studio809

MENTIONED:

Condo defect legislation

OneVeLa 27-story high-rise apartment project

Cottonwood Center for the Arts

Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum

Pikes Peak International Hill Climb Fan Fest

Parade of Lights

Pride Fest

Colorado Springs Labor Day Lift Off

CSPD

Elevate Downtown Plan

Revel: The Urban Arts Party

AdAmAn Alley

Mom’s Day Out

Acacia Park

Dizzy Charlie’s Music & Events

Downtown Rotary Club

Front Rail Passenger Rail District

Kinship Landing

Windsor

Loveland

Castle Rock

Peregrine

Briargate

Ski Broadmoor

Sharktooth Ski Area

U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum

Switchbacks FC

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center

Poor Richard’s

Richard Skorman

Kimball’s Peak Three

Chuck Murphy

Thunderball

Bingo Burger

Borriello Brothers Pizza

Eric Brenner

Red Gravy

Perry Bolts

Eclectic CO

Yobel

Emily and Clay Ross

Loving the Springs celebrates the best of Colorado Springs and elevates the rest.

Plug into what’s happening in the Pikes Peak region, learn about awesome people, places and happenings, and explore opportunities to make life here even better. Longtime Springs booster Carrie Simison co-hosts with local gadflies Al Brody and Dave Gardner. All three love our two springs – Colorado and Manitou, so they give them the mic in this twice-monthly podcast. Nothing’s off the table – recreation, the arts, government, business, politics – if it touches your life, they’ll talk about it. We’ll invite the movers and shakers, conspiracy theorists, NIMBYs, YIMBYs, yaysayers and naysayers to join them.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts, and give us feedback and suggestions via comments at https://studio809podcasts.com/loving-the-springs or lovingthespringspodcast at gmail.com