KUSA – If you live in Denver, you’ve most likely been to the Cherry Creek neighborhood. It’s the one with the mall … and the Cherry Cricket … and the really expensive apartments … and the really bad construction traffic for a while there.
This weekend is the Cherry Creek Arts Festival, one of the most competitive juried shows in the country and a 27-year tradition. If you’re one of the tens of thousands of people who will be in the area this weekend to take in the sights and sounds, here are nine things you might not know about what one of Denver’s oldest and most famous neighborhoods.
The neighborhood’s borders, by the way, are Cherry Creek to the south, East Sixth Avenue to the north, University Boulevard to the west and Colorado Boulevard to the east.
This is part of our weekly #9Neighborhoods series. Join us on the 9NEWS Instagram starting at noon on Friday for a tour of the Cherry Creek neighborhood!
Cherry Creek was legit named for cherries
No joke. According to the neighborhood association’s website, Cherry Creek got its name from the Arapaho Indians, who found a bunch of chokecherries along the creek (see what they did there?).
It was also a favorite buffalo hunting ground for the tribe, but it’s the name Cherry Creek that ultimately stuck.
The Cherry Creek Mall was initially a dump
Don’t tell this to Nordstrom’s marketing people.
What is now the ritziest shopping center in Denver was a city dump because the area was deemed unsuitable for everything else due to flooding. But, Architect-developer Temple Buell built the Cherry Creek Shopping Center in 1949.
It became the mall we know and love today in 1990.
Biking has been a thing in Cherry Creek since the 1890s
The Cherry Creek Trail is probably one of the most famous draws to this Denver neighborhood, but the hipsters on bikes you might see riding from LoDo to Glendale are not special. SORRY MILLENNIALS.
In fact, biking has been encouraged in the neighborhood since the 1890s thanks to a bike club that wanted folks out on the multiple bike paths.
President Obama stayed in a hotel here once
President Barack Obama snubbed the Brown Palace (he’s one of only three U.S. presidents to do that) and stayed at the ritzy JW Marriott in Cherry Creek North instead.
According to the hotel’s website, the JW Marriott has “196 spacious guest rooms with large, five-piece marble baths, many with panoramic mountain views.”
So there you go.
Most of the shops in Cherry Creek North are actually locally-owned
When you think of malls, you might think of big chain outlets. But, Cherry Creek North – the outdoor mixed-used area outside the mall – has nearly 400 stores and 73 percent of those are locally-owned.
According to Colorado.com, that makes this 16-block neighborhood the largest collection of independently owned shops in the U.S.
Getting into the Cherry Creek Arts Festival is super hard
To get into the Cherry Creek Arts Festival, arts have to submit an application to a jury of five artists, consultants and curators, who sifted through this year’s 2,138 applications to pick the 260 best.
That means there’s only a 12 percent acceptance rate – for context, Northwestern University has a higher acceptance rate at 13.2 percent!
Luckily, anyone can attend the festival, which is free. Attendance has hit upwards of 350,000 people in years past!
There are 60 spas and salons in this neighborhood
This was a fact listed on Colorado’s tourism website, and as a serious journalism, I immediately went about fact-checking it because … well … that seems like a lot of spas and salons.
But, lo and behold: This is accurate … and here’s the proof: https://bit.ly/2tXaTbx
Side note: A Great Clips is included in the list.
Elway’s is actually named for John Elway
If you’re the type of person who loves an expensive steak, then you likely know what Elway’s is.
John Elway is actually one of the guys behind it – along with his longtime friend Tim Schmidt, according to the restaurant’s website.
Just for fun, the most expensive item on the dinner menu is the 16 oz Alaskan crab legs, at a cool $65.
The wine list, meanwhile, is literally a 38-page PDF.
The median price for a home is down (at least according to real estate website Trulia.com)
The average property in Cherry Creek sells for $615,000, according to real estate website Trulia.com. That’s actually down 30 percent from $885,000 a year ago.
We asked a couple of real estate experts why this is, and will update this story when we learn more.
In the meantime, it also bears mentioning that the average apartment in Cherry Creek rents for $3,900.
