So Long To The Mile High City

David J. Danto

Travel thoughts in my own, personal opinion

eMail: ddanto@IMCCA.org Follow Industry News: @NJDavidD on

Saying Goodbye To Denver August 2026

There was a time when I looked forward to business trips to Denver.

One of the conferences I have regularly attended is CEDIA Expo, a trade show focused on residential technology, including smart homes, home theaters, networking, lighting, automation and other professionally installed systems. After this year, CEDIA Expo is leaving the Mile High City for at least the foreseeable future.

I first attended the show there roughly two decades ago, when downtown Denver offered one of those rare convention experiences in which leaving the convention center was part of the attraction rather than an exercise in finding the fastest route back to the hotel.

A few blocks away was the 16th Street Mall, a tree-lined pedestrian promenade with shops, restaurants and a free shuttle running through its center. I always thought of the shuttle as a trolley, even though Denver officially called it the MallRide. The distinction hardly mattered. It moved slowly through the middle of the street, stopping at every block and giving downtown a comfortable, almost small-town quality.

Built in 1982, the original 16th Street Mall was designed as a pedestrian and transit corridor running through the center of downtown. Its free shuttle connected the area near the convention center with the shops and restaurants farther along the street and, eventually, with Union Station.

It was pretty. It was convenient. Most importantly for a business traveler, it made Denver feel like somewhere worth visiting rather than merely somewhere a trade show happened to be located.

You could step out of CEDIA at almost any time of day to find lunch, have a drink, browse through some shops or simply wander beneath the trees. The city felt welcoming, active and unusually manageable.

That is the Denver I remember.

The Bear Stayed. Almost Everything Else Changed.

The Colorado Convention Center itself remains an excellent facility, complete with the enormous blue bear peering through its glass wall. Officially titled “I See What You Mean,” the 40-foot bear has been watching convention visitors since 2005 and has become the building’s unofficial mascot.

Unfortunately, during my more recent visits, the bear was about the only part of the downtown experience that still seemed cheerful.

CEDIA returned to Denver for a run of shows just as downtown was enduring a remarkably difficult period. The pandemic had emptied offices and reduced pedestrian traffic. Stores and restaurants were struggling. Homelessness had become increasingly visible. Then Denver began tearing apart the very street that was supposed to connect the convention center with the rest of downtown.

Downtown Denver Before and During Construction

The reconstruction of 16th Street began in 2022. For convention visitors, the result was block after block of fencing, excavators, detours, narrowed pedestrian paths and businesses that were technically open but often difficult to reach.

Local reporting in 2023 described a corridor where construction had driven away customers while homelessness, drug use and crime remained persistent concerns. January foot traffic was reported at about 200,000 visitors, compared with approximately 350,000 during the same month in 2019.

From a visitor’s perspective, it felt worse than those statistics suggest.

Walking from the convention center toward the remaining shops meant navigating construction barriers while encountering more people living on the street than the area seemed capable of humanely supporting. Some entrances were blocked or difficult to find. Several familiar businesses were gone. The walk that had once been a pleasant conclusion to the conference day or an easy break for a streetside lunch became something to avoid.

I want to be clear about that last point. People experiencing homelessness are not an urban inconvenience to be swept out of sight or arrested because convention visitors find their presence uncomfortable. They are human beings who need housing, treatment, sanitation and support.

But compassion does not require pretending that leaving people to sleep, struggle and sometimes deteriorate on a commercial street is a successful public policy. It is neither humane for them nor workable for the residents, employees, merchants and visitors attempting to use the same public space. If there was money for the construction some of it should have been spent helping these people.

Denver appears to have made some progress. The Metro Denver Homeless Initiative reported that the region’s 2026 homeless count declined 8 percent from the prior year, while the number of people sleeping outdoors declined 21 percent. That is a meaningful improvement, although 1,703 people were still counted in unsheltered locations across the region.

Three Years to Repair a Street – And Destroy a Reputation

Denver says the physical reconstruction is finally over.

The approximately $175 million project replaced deteriorating infrastructure, widened sidewalks, created new public spaces and expanded the street’s tree canopy to more than 200 trees. The entire 1.25-mile corridor reopened in October 2025, and the shuttle – now renamed the 16th Street FreeRide – resumed service between Union Station and Civic Center.

That means my September trip will be my first opportunity to see the supposedly repaired version.

Perhaps it will be beautiful again. Perhaps the new trees, patios and gathering spaces will eventually restore some of the atmosphere I remember. There are signs that people are returning, although downtown’s office vacancy rate remained around 29 percent during the first quarter of 2026.

Infrastructure can be replaced more easily than habits, however. A visitor who encounters a bad downtown experience once may forgive it. Someone who experiences it year after year eventually stops venturing outside the convention center.

A city can spend three years rebuilding a street and considerably longer rebuilding the expectation that there will be something worth finding at the end of it.

The Last CEDIA in Denver

CEDIA Expo returns to Denver September 1–4, but this will be its last Denver event for at least the foreseeable future. Beginning in 2027, the show starts a national rotation: Las Vegas in 2027, Orlando in 2028, Las Vegas again in 2029 and Dallas in 2030.

CEDIA’s organizers are not publicly blaming Denver. They describe the rotation as a way to reach new markets, make travel easier for attendees in different regions and bring fresh energy to the event. That is perfectly plausible and probably commercially sensible.

Nor is Denver’s overall convention business collapsing. In fact, the Colorado Convention Center reported a record 87 convention-center groups and more than 276,000 attendees in 2025.

So I cannot honestly claim that CEDIA is leaving because downtown Denver failed it.

I can say that Denver squandered much of the goodwill it once enjoyed with longtime attendees like me. It allowed the experience surrounding an otherwise excellent convention center to deteriorate, then subjected visitors and businesses to years of disruptive reconstruction, obstructed sidewalks, persistent solicitation and a downtown environment that often felt actively unwelcoming. Whatever the project’s eventual benefits, the process was a miserable failure from a visitor’s perspective.

The timing is painfully ironic. Just as Denver declares the street restored, the show that repeatedly brought me there is preparing to leave.

You Can Rebuild the Street, But Not the Memory

When I return in September, I will walk down 16th Street again.

I hope the shuttle is running. I hope the new trees are thriving. I hope shops and restaurants have returned and that the people who once had nowhere else to go have been offered something better than another order to move along.

I would genuinely like Denver to prove my recent impressions obsolete.

But even if the reconstruction is successful, I suspect the visit will feel less like a reunion and more like saying goodbye. The downtown I remember was not merely a collection of granite pavers, trees and storefronts. It was the feeling that whenever you stepped away from business inside the convention center – for lunch, a drink or simply a walk – an inviting city was waiting outside.

That Denver may eventually exist again for a new generation of visitors.

For me, this September will probably be one last attempt to find a place that survives more clearly in memory than it does on the map.

You can repair the pavement. You can rename the shuttle. You can plant new trees.

But sometimes, you really can’t go home again.

After decades of candid travel commentary – from loyalty program “magic tricks” to hotel check-in roulette – I’ve decided to turn some of that honesty into apparel. These aren’t novelty shirts; they’re the exact truths every road warrior wishes they could say out loud. Whether you’re quietly muttering “My loyalty points devalued while you read this shirt” or admitting “If delays build character then I’m the whole movie’s cast” you’ll find plenty of familiar sentiments… and more. Everything is produced by a reputable outfit, with black tees that work under a sport jacket plus hoodies and wicking travel gear for life on the road. The site also has my honest and snarky takes on technology trade shows. Take a look at Tinyurl.com/TechAndTravelWear. Even if you’re not buying they’re fun to read and commiserate – and if you do buy something, maybe I’ll break even. If you want a style you don’t see, just email me and I’ll add it.

This article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal opinions.

All image and links provided above as reference under prevailing fair use statutes.

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As always, feel free to write and comment, question or disagree. Hearing from the traveling community is always a highlight for me. Thanks!