Downtown stretch in Colorado city one step closer to getting improvements, makeover

Downtown Littleton is known for its historic charm and small-town feel, with Main Street being the heart of the community. While keeping its unique charm, city leaders are looking to reimagine Main Street, which is one step closer to seeing some big improvements and a makeover.

It's part of Project Downtown, which the city adopted in 2024 and is the city's long-term vision for the area. Main Street was identified as the first and top priority, and the city has secured funding for Project Main Street as the first phase of Project Downtown.

Project Main Street is moving into preliminary design, with the community's vision becoming reality. It'll address the aging infrastructure but also help provide more opportunities for people to gather and hang out as a community.

As the president of Central Bank and a new business owner along Main Street, Baxter Fain welcomes the reimagined vision.

"When you look down Main Street, there's traffic and no trees," Fain told CBS Colorado. "With this expansion, these sidewalks get bigger. There is one lane of traffic, trees everywhere and seating areas. So it becomes almost like a residential park, where you can come and park and stay, and all these storefronts will benefit from that."

This year, the city secured $32.6 million in funding for the Main Street improvements. Those include curb-less streets between Curtis Street and Prince Street, bringing back trees that had to be cut down due to a disease and more gathering spaces.

"For events, we could temporarily shut down the street to host events. There would be event lighting, so the twinkle lights across the street, which creates that lovely environment that everybody likes," Adrienne Burton told CBS Colorado. "We lost our trees prior to the Project Downtown planning process kicking off due to a disease that really took out the entire tree canopy downtown."

The city also wants to make it safer and easier to get around for pedestrians and bikers and improve parking through Project Parking.

"It's our first operational approach to how we manage parking and curbside for the city of Littleton … And we want to make sure we're thinking about parking for the overall downtown," Burton said. "Currently, when you come downtown, it's difficult to understand where to park. We don't have those parking signs to direct people where there's service parking."

Burton said keeping downtown's historic charm is also a top priority.

"Downtown has been identified as a priority going back for years," Burton said. "It continues to be a gem for not only our citizens but for the region. It's a huge draw. This is a legacy project for our community."

Construction is expected to begin in mid-2028 and wrap up in late 2029. While construction is underway, the city also hopes to minimize impacts and maintain access to downtown businesses.

Community members can also go online and take two surveys on Project Main Street and Project Parking. The preliminary designs will be presented to city council in January, with the goal of getting final approval early in 2027.

More information is available on the city of Littleton's Let's Talk Littleton page. 

Outside of Project Main Street, Project Downtown identified four other major projects including improvements to Prince Street, Alamo Avenue, Nevada Street and Little's Creek Trail.

"It'll be a true destination, which that helps with our community, with our families, but all the businesses that are here," Fain said. "What the city is doing is really special."=