This commentary is by West Pearl business owners involved in the Keep West Pearl Open campaign (names listed below).
Editor’s note: After this commentary was published, organizers of the ballot initiative to close West Pearl Street to cars announced they were suspending their campaign.
As downtown business owners who collectively employ more than 750 people directly on the two blocks of West Pearl and many others in the immediate retail district, we are proud to be among the 170-plus business leaders who vocally and strongly oppose the efforts to reclose West Pearl Street to vehicles.
We have followed closely the statements made by Kurt Nordback, the lead organizer of the closure petition and a sitting member of the Boulder Planning Board and Boulder Progressives Board. In media interviews, Nordback has said that the closure would be a “win-win” and suggested that his team is working closely with downtown businesses.
As West Pearl business owners, we vehemently disagree with the organizers’ statements that they are working with us. We don’t want this measure to get on the ballot, in any way, shape or form.
If this petition effort is successful, it would create a monumental lose-lose situation for local downtown businesses, accessibility advocates and Boulder’s broader downtown community. We again urge the organizers to abandon the petition effort, which to date has not received the support of a single downtown Boulder business.
Why this petition is bad for Boulder
Let’s start with the facts:
This is an unfunded mandate. More than 170 business leaders in downtown Boulder have publicly opposed the proposed closure, citing it as an unfunded mandate that would divert limited resources from larger and more pressing priorities.
There’s a reason why businesses are opposed. During the last shutdown, some of the businesses on West Pearl saw their revenues plummet by up to 50%. During the recovery period that followed, city tax data shows that sales tax collections cratered on West Pearl, while increasing by nearly 20% on East Pearl, where easy access was maintained. For the two dozen restaurants, coffee and ice cream shops directly on this two-block stretch of West Pearl, another closure would be devastating.
And what about the parking? Proponents of the closure argue that it would impact just 58 on-street parking spaces. This statement fails to account for the high turnover these spots experience throughout an average day. In 2024, these 58 spots accounted for more than 119,000 unique parking events and generated more than $325,000 in parking revenue, matching the daily usage of a nearby full-scale parking garage. And that number doesn’t count the thousands more who park after 7 p.m. nightly or on Sundays, when parking is free all day and demand remains high.
If the closure takes effect, where will these cars be parked instead? And how would the city make up the shortfall in parking revenue? It is not fair to Walnut Street and West Pearl businesses west of 9th Street, not to mention the residents of West Spruce, Pine, Pearl and Walnut, to create this additional parking burden in their neighborhoods.
There’s no “win-win” here. At taxpayer expense, the City of Boulder commissioned GEHL (the Global Urban Strategy Design Group) to study the costs and benefits of closing West Pearl in 2022 at a cost of over $100,000. The key takeaway from the study — reinforced by the city’s ongoing Social Streets planning — is that West Pearl should not be closed again. The same study also recommended working with the community to identify other Boulder city streets for short-term, event-related closures. Despite the data and vocal opposition from more than 170 business leaders downtown, the organizers are moving forward without any support on their ballot measure from the business community and appear disinterested in anything other than exercising the “nuclear option” of a full closure. That’s not just bad policy — it’s a rejection of basic community dialogue.
Accessibility is everything. Whether you’re a senior hoping to visit your favorite café, a family grabbing a quick bite, someone running errands on your lunch break, or a third-party delivery driver, convenience and access matter. West Pearl is not the Pearl Street Mall – and that’s by design. It’s a functional street that works because it allows people of all ages and mobility levels to access it easily. Especially during the colder months, ease of access is often the deciding factor in whether locals choose to support a business on West Pearl or opt for an alternative destination with easy parking and access. There’s a reason there are twice as many restaurants and coffee shops on these two blocks of West Pearl as there are on the four blocks of the bricks: accessibility.
Keeping West Pearl open
Our goal is simple: maintaining a downtown that thrives every day, year-round, not just on picture-perfect weekends.
David Cohen – Spruce Confections
Bryan Dayton – C Burger / C Bar
Edwin Zoe – Zoe Ma Ma / DragonFly / Pearl Poke
Eli Feldman – Conscience Bay Company
Brad Heap – SALT
Joe and Peggy Romano – Brasserie 10/10
Justin and Rebecca Hartman – OZO Coffee
Bo and Trish Sharon – Lolita’s Market
Doug Haffnieter – Flagstaff Properties
Mark and Laurie Van Grack – Hapa Sushi
Jay and Wyatt Elowsky – Pasta Jay’s
Phil Day – PMD Realty
Peter Waters – T’aco
Dana and Dave Query – West End / Jax / Centro / Wonder
Doug Emerson – University Bikes
Johnny Curiel – Cozobi
Jake Novotny – Jungle
Kate and Andy Manz – Sweep Salon
I sympathize with our West Pearl Merchants: there are some stellar names listed there! I also know that there is ‘no business on a Dead Planet’, and our quick-paced automobile culture contributes to our lovely Earth’s accelerating demise. We have the classic conundrum of business and the hidden costs of doing business. We must learn to take a longer view than now and consider how to break our automobile habit. Drawing down does make sense for ALL of us.
Please listen to these voices of reason from the independent entrepreneurs who have invested heavily in their businesses and the city of Boulder.
Don’t betray them.
Let’s please listen to these folks who are actuall invested in downtown Boulder. The closure crowd are just pretenders with undisclosed agendas.
This opinion piece is full of easily debunked information that insults the intelligence of the reader, but I felt the need to respond to this one in particular:
“During the last shutdown, some of the businesses on West Pearl saw their revenues plummet by up to 50%”
… 50% relative to what? East Pearl in the same time period? Or West Pearl during a very different time period when a global pandemic wasn’t killing millions of people? Just nonsense.
“Opening” West Pearl means not privileging access to the operators of massive, noisy, expensive, polluting metal boxes. It means not privileging the microscopic cabal of businesses listed here over the wishes for improved quality of life and nature of thousands of local residents.
I presently don’t have an opinion on this issue. However, as I read this op-ed, the thought most coming to mind is this: how do the article’s arguments differ from those made by 11th-15th street businesses in the mid 1970s? Lost parking revenue, decreased foot traffic, driving parking to adjacent areas, etc. all seem like they might’ve been made 50 years ago.
If the arguments are the same, do the authors believe the existing Pearl Street Pedestrian Mall has been impeding business for the past many decades? If the arguments differ, in what ways?
Also, though not worded as I would have, I believe Dafydd raises some valid points in that continuing to focus on the automobile seems backward looking, and that the economic discussion seems flawed – cratering by definition means it’s presently trending up, and the closure isn’t the sole possible cause in the sales tax dip. Indeed, the chart in Figure 1 shows more restaurants & retailers reported increased sales than those reporting a decrease.
Perhaps David is correct in suggesting my wording above is strong, but I must stress that in urban planning circles there is an exhaustion with the same tired arguments made here, arguments that have been proven wrong in cities all over the world, and that it’s frustrating seeing them come up in one of the best educated cities in the country.
Here’s another one for free: “In 2024, these 58 spots accounted for more than 119,000 unique parking events and generated more than $325,000 in parking revenue”.
It is here assumed that the reader would not consider applying high-school level arithmetic, which reveals that these impressive-sounding numbers break down to 6 “unique parking events” and $15 per space per day. Do we think using the same space for a restaurant table would generate less?
The other cities I mentioned didn’t have the advantage we do – we don’t even need to use our imaginations, we actually *saw* West Pearl as a lively, safe, sustainable, colorful, clean community space. Don’t let anybody twist some numbers to tell you it was a mirage.
Okay, so-I must be messing something up, but for the life of me, I can’t find the data that supports the numbers that they put in this article.
The first one about sales tax revenue going down gives a link to a report that only provides some data about sales tax trends in different parts of downtown/Pearl for restaurants. I checked the revenue reports for city sales tax, and it doesn’t look like they do data on West Pearl as a distinct area. Is there something I’m not seeing?
The second one about parking revenue just links to revenue reports from the city, that don’t seem to say anything about revenue from parking meters. I spent an inappropriate amount of time trying to look for any data on parking revenues in Boulder, specifically some datasets that would allow us to review parking use cases and revenue on the individual street level, and I can’t find it.
Is this missing from the article, or is there something wrong with the hyperlinks?