AURORA | Aurora has received a $75,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support a community-driven redesign of Fletcher Plaza on East Colfax Avenue.
The project, called “Play On!,” will use surveys, hands-on design activities, youth engagement and artist-led efforts to gather input from residents and develop what city officials say is a temporary transformation of the plaza. The city will match the federal grant, creating a total project budget of $150,000.
The project is expected to begin in spring 2027 and engage residents of the East Colfax area.
The temporary changes are intended to test design features that could help make Fletcher Plaza a welcoming and safe gathering place for children, families and local artists, city officials said in a statement.
The most liked changes could then become permanent installations on the plaza, created in 2004.
The project is a collaboration between the city’s Library and Cultural Services Department, the Creative Alliance of Downtown Aurora, Manos Sagrados, Downtown Aurora Visual Arts, the city’s Park, Recreation and Open Space Department and the Better Block Foundation.
Better Block, a nonprofit group focused on community-driven public-space projects, will guide the design process and lead the plaza’s renewal. The work will include community workshops, volunteer build sessions and a culminating public event tentatively scheduled for June 2027.
The project is one of a handful of new and reinvigorated efforts to bring urban renewal and business development to the East Colfax Corridor between I-225 and the city’s border with Denver at Yosemite Street. This week, the city’s new, voter-approved Downtown Development Authority meets for the first time, The efforts follow decades of plans and projects intended to draw new and varied businesses to the region and improve the region’s image.
“‘Play On!’ will help us work closely with community members and leaders to re-imagine and rebuild Fletcher Plaza as a safe, vibrant, community-centered public space,” Ginger White Brunetti, director of Library and Cultural Services, said in a statement.
Krista Nightengale, executive director of the Better Block Foundation, said the organization’s work focuses on showing communities what is possible when residents help lead public-space projects.
Fletcher Plaza is named after Aurora founder Donald Fletcher. It is next to the recently renovated Martin Luther King Jr. Library and the Aurora Fox Arts Center in the Aurora Cultural Arts District
The region has attracted a variety of cultural arts venues. Vintage Theatre is one block to the east of the plaza. Downtown Aurora Visual Arts is two blocks west. The People’s Building and The Storyteller Theater are across East Colfax Avenue.