Part two in a series about Denver parks, the pressures they face and the city’s plans for their future.
The evolution of what could soon be Denver’s biggest music festival, set to take place at Overland Golf Course, has surely been one long, strange trip. This month, on July 10, the community will learn what the contract between Superfly, the event’s organizer, and the City will stipulate. The draft contract went to Denver City Council Committee June 20, the concrete details of which are still being worked out.
What Denver City Council is considering is a five-year deal with Superfly, and first to be negotiated is the financial benefit to the City. “It’s obviously a significant economic transaction for Denver, so there are a lot of portions to it,” says local Superfly spokesman David Ehrlich, a public relations consultant who operates FinWater Advisors. “When you add it all up, it’ll end up being between $1 and $2.5 million dollars.” This is revenue Denver could expect on an annual basis, and Ehrlich says the final number depends largely on ticket sales, but other inputs will also play a role.
After the primary financial benefit is agreed upon, Ehrlich says the next segment of the contract discusses Superfly’s obligations. “There are a whole list of obligations, and then there is a whole list of plans,” Ehrlich says. “A safety plan, an infrastructure plan, traffic plan… All of those will be delivered after the contract but before the festival.” He adds the festival will not go on without the City approving these plans. He characterizes the process as collaborative, with Superfly and the City working together to devise plans that make sense for both parties and the immediate community.
So, just how exactly will the City approve the contract with Superfly and make sure all the subsequent plans are up to snuff? According to Denver City Councilman Jolon Clark of District 7, several agencies will have to weigh in, and, in the end, City Council will not necessarily have final say.
“It’s not a Council action to approve each of these plans,” Councilman Clark says. “And part of the discussion is ‘what is Council’s role,’ and ‘how can we make sure we are still involved in the process’ even though technically we are the decision makers on the [overall] contract. The whole process is bizarre in that we only approve contracts that are over $500,000; we don’t get to negotiate contracts.”
Councilman Clark says each relevant city department will have to sign off on each plan, with the Police Department signing off on the safety plan, for instance. Superfly, he says, is responsible for producing somewhere between ten and fifteen different plans for the festival, with a different City agency signing off on each. The goal behind the bureaucracy? Ensuring one person, in this case Denver Parks and Recreation Executive Director Allegra “Happy” Haynes, isn’t signing off on plans that are outside of her area of expertise. “You don’t want Happy Haynes, who is in charge of parks, signing off on the Parking and Traffic Management Plan, because she’s not the person who should be looking at traffic patterns,” Clark says.
Pinning down just who has the final say, though? That’s not exactly easy to do at this time. Councilman Clark does say there are checks meant to ensure the five-year agreement with Superfly, were the agreement to be approved and problems arise after the first year’s festival, is a living document. Councilman Clark says all the plans that must be in place before the first festival even happens, they exist outside the contract because anything can change at any time. “If the traffic plan is written into the contract and then something changes, Iowa goes under construction for example ... what the contract says is every year, in order to be able to [have the festival, Superfly] has to get the plans approved by the appropriate City agency... If something didn’t work in year one, well then the plan better come back next year to address those issues.”
What was happening during those six months in 2016?
In the first installment of this series it was reported the City was approached with a proposal for the present Overland Music Festival in late spring or early summer 2016. It was noted roughly six months passed between when first contact was made and when the city approached the community. So what happened in that interval?
According to Grace Ramirez, Community Affairs Liaison for Denver’s Office of Special Events, in those months the city viewed a formal event presentation by Superfly, conducted site vetting work and embarked on a trip to San Francisco in August 2016 to Superfly’s Outside Lands festival to “see firsthand the logistics of the event and to meet with City of San Francisco counterparts that worked with Outside Lands to further understand the credibility of the event organizers.”
Ramirez says it was in fall of 2016 that her office reported its findings to Mayor Hancock, and he authorized them to move forward, she says, “only if the community supported the music festival.” She continues: “Through the late fall and early winter we worked with Councilman Jolon Clark to plan our community outreach which began by meeting with [Registered Neighborhood Organization] leaders. Councilman Clark met directly with community leaders beginning in November 2016. Our first large RNO meeting was in early January after the holidays.”
The real delay in bringing the festival to the public’s attention, Ramirez, says, is the vetting and planning process happened to fall during the Denver Office of Special Event’s busiest season “when we host the majority of our 600-plus [annual] events.” In the end, she adds, the City’s top priority was taking its time so as to avoid making a rash decision.
A golf course in Park Hill and the future of city parks
There are myriad visions for how Denver's parks could and should be used, with some parties wanting diverse programming happening in City parks and others wanting parks to remain open without interruption year round.
The recent 420 Rally trash incident in Civic Center Park drew much attention from both sides of this argument. At present, the event's promoters have appealed the City's decision to fine them nearly $12,000 and prevent them from holding other events for three years.
No matter what side you're on, there's no debate over Denver’s fast growth. With more residents, there is more pressure on our parks. What is your take? Do you think Denver’s parks are too crowded? Are they holding up under current rates of usage? Denver Metro Media has composed a survey on the topic. If you want to share your thoughts, visit surveymonkey.com/r/77BZNZD. The survey will also be available via the Profile and LIFE facebook pages.
Does the City need more parkland to keep up with growth? Should it buy a golf course in Park Hill that could soon be up for sale? The next installment will investigate. Have questions/comments? Email editor@denvermetromedia.com.
