WEEK OF APRIL 10, 2025
VOLUME 20 | ISSUE 41
FREE
Renovations cause homeless Navigation Center to go offline until November Renovations slated for city-owned facility to expand sheltering capacity
Q&A WITH OUTGOING DIRECTOR OF AURA P2
BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
POST OAK BARBECUE COMES TO OLDE TOWN P4 ARVADA
ing the pilot program compared to a monitoring period that took place before the pilot program went into effect. The program cost a total of $38,000, with $15,000 of that going toward the removal of the infrastructure. The cost to make permanent roundabouts would have been between $30,000 and $100,000 according to Chris Lisberg, Arvada’s assistant city engineer. Lisberg detailed some of the issues the traffic circles created at a community meeting in October. “When it came to driver behavior, it felt as if some drivers could easily get a little confused, or at least have hesitation entering and traveling through these,” Liaberg said. “As far as operations and maintenance goes, it did prove tricky for again, those larger vehicles — imagine trash trucks, a fire engine or ambulance or just even general drivers with, say, a large pickup truck, maneuvering through there. “The input that we received was that people didn’t feel very safe and were uncomfortable,” Liberg continued. “Many (reported) feeling unsafe and uncomfortable with these devices in-
Unhoused people in Lakewood will likely need to find alternate sources of resources for the next few months, as the city’s Navigation Center — run by nonprofit RecoveryWorks — is going offline for the next six months so that its capacity can be expanded. RecoveryWorks has been operating the city-owned Navigation Center located at 8000 W. Colfax Avenue since it opened in November 2023, but it will now be taking at least a pause on that role as the building is set to go offline for day shelter services on April 11 and will stop providing all services by the end of the month. Stacie Oulton, Lakewood’s manager of public information, said the renovations will allow the navigation center to offer more services than it has in the past, and added that work is expected to be completed this November. “The renovation will increase the number of beds available at the site and bring trauma-informed design elements to the space,” Oulton said. “Additionally, the building will be able to better support its use through increases in bathrooms and replacement of life and safety infrastructure.” RecoveryWorks will pause on its role and solely use its motel to offer services, though that location is a closed system that’s available to 33 people at a time for bridge housing, according to the nonprofit’s Executive Director James Ginsburg. The Navigation Center — which was formerly open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. five days a week — was serving an average of 140 people a day and 1,100 people total in 2024. With another Lakewood day shelter, Mean Street Ministries closing at the beginning of this year and still looking for a replacement building, the closure of Lakewood’s Navigation Center creates a gap, Ginsburg said.
SEE TRAFFIC CIRCLES, P7
SEE RENOVATIONS, P7
The traffic circle at 57th Avenue and Yukon Street has been removed. PHOTO BY RYLEE DUNN
Arvada takes out traffic circles on 57th Avenue Confusion amongst residents, concerns for emergency vehicles cited as reasons for removal CHURCHES SHARE THEIR CHANGES AFTER PANDEMIC P10
2025
VOTE NOW March 1st - April 15th
BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
After an almost three-year pilot program, the traffic circles on 57th Avenue have been removed by the City of Arvada. The program was implemented to slow traffic on the corridor outside of Olde Town — and data suggests it was successful in that effort — but it led to confusion among drivers and presented challenges for emergency vehicles passing through the circles. The circles , which were essentially rudimentary roundabouts, were installed in the middle of four intersections on 57th Avenue between Independence Street and Yarrow Street in fall 2022 and began to be removed on April 1. Data shows that the average speed along the corridor decreased between 5 and 9 miles per hour, depending on location along 57th, dur-
VOICES: 8 | LIFE: 10 | CALENDAR: 12 | SPORTS: 16
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