A dream 16 long years in the making came true on Thursday with one slice of the scissors.

The ribbon was cut on an unprecedented public-private partnership that will make a new $1.9 million (but still unnamed) performance facility available to small cultural groups in Arkins Park along the South Platte River. And, for many of them – for free.

“This is something that has never been seen before in any public park in Colorado,” said Charity Von Guinness, Executive Director of the RiNo Art District.

Unlike previous efforts by the city to create affordable performance spaces for local arts groups, this one will not be managed by the city. It will be run – and partially subsidized – by the RiNo Art District itself. “We took on the renovation ourselves,” said Von Guinness. “We built out the fundraising, activation and programming of all these spaces.”

“Spaces,” plural, because this new performance venue is the second and final phase of a fully reimagined 4.5 acres located one block west of 35th Avenue and Brighton Boulevard. “If you all had seen this area 12 years ago,” Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said, “you wouldn’t have walked through it.”

The city of Denver bought the blighted property that had long housed the Interstate Trucking Company back in 2007 and originally planned to demolish its two massive buildings to make way for what is today Arkins Park. But Tracy Weil, a painter who co-founded the RiNo Arts District back in 2005, saw it as the perfect opportunity to incorporate a multi-faceted arts and community center.

“We at RiNo have been working with the city for 16 years now to facilitate that process and get us to where we are today, which I think is pretty amazing,” Weil said. “They were going to tear all these buildings down, but the neighborhood came together and said, ‘We want to keep those buildings.’ So we did – thank goodness.”

The rebirth began with the 2021 opening of the Alto Gallery and an eight-studio artist compound that is subsidized by the RiNo Art District and managed by the nearby Redline Contemporary Art Center. The Denver Public Library’s Bob Ragland Branch opened next door in February 2022, and the Comal Heritage Food Incubator – named among The New York Times’ “50 most vibrant and delicious restaurants in 2021,” will move in next to the library in July. (Part of its mission is to provide training for immigrant and refugee women to enter the food industry.)

And now nestled across the lush lawn on the south end of the park is the newly refurbished performance venue, completing what is being colloquially called the RiNo ArtPark.

That new venue is basically a big, empty brick box, which means it will be adaptable to just about any creative or event purpose. It is 4,000 square feet and can fit 450 people standing or 200 seated. The RiNo Arts District will be programming it with underrepresented cultural groups in mind – and the funkier, the better.

“We would like to offer it for free as much as we can, especially for emerging and experimental pieces,” Von Guinness said.

“Our thinking was: We have this amazing concentration of creatives in Colorado, but we’re still lacking affordable, beautiful, flexible space for them to share their art with the community. And so we saw this venue as an opportunity to offer an immersive, experiential performing-art space at a one-of-a-kind riverfront venue that’s also available for private events.”

Those who attended Thursday’s ribbon-cutting got a sneak peek at the new space in action. The RiNo Art District commissioned Denver’s OddKnock Productions to create an immersive dance piece specifically for this grand-opening weekend. “Good Bones,” a dance piece exploring madness, plays out within several rooms with walls made of transparent scrims. You can see it for yourself in full at 4:30 or 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Weil sees the new art park as a blow to gentrification in an area that is, ironically, undergoing massive gentrification. “With everything that is happening around us,” he said, “this is really a way to keep artists in the neighborhood here.”

In all, this was a $7 million project. The city paid to build the park through Elevate Denver bonds. The RiNo Art District raised $3 million to refurbish the first two buildings and needs $150,000 more to finish the $1.9 million needed to pay off the performance venue.

Hancock sees this art-park project as a continuation of his efforts to save the National Western Stock Show from leaving Denver 12 years ago. “We invested $40 million to redo the ugliest road in Denver – Brighton Boulevard – and all that has done is attract billions of dollars of private investment along South Platte River,” he said.

Hancock leaves office next month, but the art park makes for a nice capper to a 12-year term that was decidedly pro-arts.

“I think we are touching eternity, because there will be generations that we never meet that will celebrate the work we’re doing today,” he said.

Von Guinness hopes to be fully activated with regular performances by local cultural groups by mid-July. Groups interested in using the outdoor park space for performances are also in luck. Interested parties can start by going to rinoartpark.com for information.

Speaking of gentrification …

One of the most distinctive and delightful traditions of the summer theater calendar is moving because of gentrification. “The Play Crawl,” a fundraiser for And Toto Too, Denver’s only theater company dedicated exclusively to women-identifying playwrights, is moving from Tennyson Street to Olde Town Arvada.

Artistic Director Susan Lyles’ signature event has, for the past 10 years, offered audiences 10 original, site-specific playlets that play out in galleries and shops along Tennyson Street. But in the past year alone, Lyles (and all of Denver) have lost four perennial Play Crawl venues, including Local46 and BookBar.

“That street has just become so overdeveloped,” Lyles said. “We were lucky to have Local46 as our starting point, and now that whole block is gone. All of that new development has taken not only the flair of the neighborhood away, but the ease of getting around.”

The 2023 Play Crawl will begin at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 12, with a mixer and check-in at Silver Vines Winery (7509 Grandview Ave.). At 7 p.m., adventurous audiences will head out in groups of a dozen or so to see the 10 plays, each less than 3 minutes in length. Tickets are $45 at 720-583-3975 at www.andtototoo.org.

Briefly …

The City Park Jazz free summer music series has gotten off to a rough and rainy start, but it did just receive the Mayor’s Legacy Event Award, and the $10,000 that goes with it. The annual award honors organizations that have demonstrated “outstanding leadership, innovation and dedication to enhancing the cultural fabric of our city.” City Park Jazz was founded in 1986. Next up: Ritmo Jazz Latino, from 6-8 p.m. Sunday …

The Kirkland Museum has opened “Dave Yῡst – Evidence of Gravity & Other Works” in honor of the 84-year-old Fort Collins aeronautical engineer-slash-painter. Yῡst, whose art explores the compositional dichotomy within elliptically and circularly-shaped paintings, taught at Colorado State University for 47 years before retiring in 2012. His exhibition will be open at the Kirkland through Oct. 1.  …

Saturday (June 24) will mark 10 years that Justine Hall of Westminster has been faithfully uploading one photo per day to her website at blipfoto.com. That’s something like 3,650 photos from her everyday life, give or take a leap year or two. “As an English girl living so far away from home, it is a great way for my family and friends to feel connected to my everyday life in Colorado,” Hall said …

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is offering free admission to its Wildlife Hall on Wednesday (June 28) from 5-9 p.m.

And finally…

Because of the hail, everyone is now telling their best weather stories from Red Rocks. Believe me, nothing holds a candle to Bruce Springsteen on Aug. 16, 1981. In those days, if the calendar was clear, you could come up the night before and sleep over to hold your seat. We did, and it rained torrents throughout the day. No one really expected the show to come off, it was so bad. But Bruce came out for soundcheck and played a few notes of what would be his opening song – a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” – and the rain (momentarily) stopped. Red Rocks was officially a church, and its god was Bruuuuuuce. Of course, the rain inevitably returned. About halfway through his infamously long set – already having played longer than many acts play in a full concert –  Springsteen tried to talk the crowd out of continuing. We were in delirious misery; he was worried about the safety of his equipment and crew. He offered to come back and start over on another night. But his proposal was resoundingly shouted down. (I may have been the only one who yelled in favor – not because I wanted to leave but because that meant we’d get to do it all over again.) But the people wanted more, and he gave it to us – 28 songs in all. Legendary.