Park Hill is having an odd year. The 155-acre space where the golf course used to be is technically yours to walk, but the city is still working out what it will become. Meanwhile, two blocks of Kearney Street and a stretch of East Colfax you probably drive past on autopilot are quietly filling in with independent operators. If you live here, the summer of 2026 is the last stretch of "before" — before the park's design firm gets picked, before the fences come down for good, before the Home Tour resets the season. Here is where things actually stand.
The park across the street is having a strange summer
The former Park Hill Golf Course is now Park Hill Park, and it is open in the loosest sense of the word. Denver Parks and Recreation recently hosted a meeting in Northeast Park Hill with a final framework for the 155-acre space, but on-site work is likely years from starting. If you have walked the perimeter recently, you already know the rest: the old golf course is dry and often overgrown, and the former golf course's irrigation system is broken and it has been mowed only sporadically, allowing dry weeds to rise.
That has become a live neighborhood conversation. Kevin Doyle, a retired firefighter whose house backs the property, has been pushing the city on fire risk, and as of late July the response is more mowing rather than water. Last year, Mayor Mike Johnston convinced voters to pass $74 million in bond funding that would pay to build a regional-scale park, including an irrigation system, but watering fixes won't happen anytime soon. Larger-scale mowing across the site is planned through the end of the summer.
Two things residents keep asking about have also slipped. The parks department is more than a year behind its initial timeline for building smaller play areas for the public to enjoy during the planning process; Denver Parks and Rec Executive Director Jolon Clark initially proposed a disc golf course or a dog park that he said would be installed last summer. And on the bigger build, "We still need to find a design firm," a parks spokesperson said, adding that construction is far from starting.
Practically, this means the property is a walk, not a destination, for at least another season. If you have out-of-town guests in September and were counting on a marquee new park to show off, plan around City Park instead and treat the golf course loop as the working backdrop it currently is.
Two blocks that are doing the opposite
While the park sits in limbo, the retail stretches inside the neighborhood are doing what Park Hill's small commercial nodes have always done: turning over slowly, keeping the anchors, and adding one or two new names a year. The concentration on Kearney Street between Montview and 23rd Avenue, plus the short strip of East 23rd around Elm and Eudora, is walkable in about fifteen minutes end to end. Here is what is on it right now:
| Spot | Address | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Cake Crumbs Bakery & Café | 2216 Kearney St. | Longtime morning gathering spot with a busy patio |
| Tables | 2267 Kearney St. | Neighborhood American, popular for lunch |
| Lucina Eatery & Bar | 2245 Kearney St. | Latin-inspired small plates and cocktails, one of the newer arrivals |
| Honey Hill Café | 4628 E 23rd Ave. | Bright breakfast and coffee spot |
| Spinelli's Market | 4621 E 23rd Ave. | Italian subs, pastries, specialty groceries |
| The Cherry Tomato | 4645 E 23rd Ave. | Classic Italian, small dining room, call-ahead waitlist |
| Sexy Pizza | 2846 Fairfax St. | Denver-born thin-crust with vegan options and local beer |
Lucina is the one to know if you have not been in a while. Lucina is an expression of soul, roots, heritage, culture, along with a deep appreciation for neighbors, bold flavors, and a colorful, interesting life is the room's own framing, and it now shows up on OpenTable's Park Hill list as a Latin American destination in the neighborhood. If you have been driving to LoDo or RiNo for a small-plates night out, this is the shorter walk.
The Cherry Tomato is the counter-argument. It is a room that only works because the neighborhood keeps showing up. Reservations for larger parties of five or more are available by phone, and smaller groups can join the waitlist through a call-ahead system, which is a very Park Hill way to run a restaurant in 2026. Save the number.
The Colfax edge is where the actual openings are
East Colfax is a different story. It has always been the neighborhood's border rather than its center, and that is exactly why it is where new concepts land first. Two to have on your radar:
Nuggs Ice Cream, 5135 E Colfax Ave. Handmade, rotating flavors, cheerful room. Worth a walk after dinner at any of the Kearney spots above.
Denver Cafe and Kava, 5501 E Colfax Ave. A non-alcoholic bar and cafe that is new to the corridor. A new non-alcoholic bar, Denver Cafe and Kava, is opening in Park Hill on 5501 E Colfax Ave., according to a building permit application. The founding team is a group of friends who met at another sober bar, Golden Kava Lounge — Kevin Bloom, Elizabeth Leung, Cam Webbe, Jayden MacDonald and Jack Kestian, who also owns Golden Kava Lounge. Co-founder Elizabeth Leung has been public about the intent: "Our main goal really is to establish a safe place for people to come and feel like they can have community and good mocktails without feeling the pressure to drink alcohol." The menu leans on coffees with in-house syrups plus Chinese and Vietnamese teas, following Leung's family's recipes.
For a neighborhood that has long been under-served on the not-drinking side of the evening, that is a genuinely new option, not a rebrand.
Mark September 27
If you only put one Park Hill date on the calendar between now and Halloween, this is it. The Park Hill Home Tour & Street Fair is a Sunday tradition that predates most of the current retail on Kearney. This year's event is scheduled for 09/27/2026 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The tour is the ticketed part. The street fair is free and it is the version most residents actually spend the day at. This longstanding community fundraiser and tradition includes a ticketed tour of neighborhood homes as well as a free street fair with local vendors, live entertainment, kids activities, a sustainability zone, food trucks and a wine & beer tent. Historically the fair spreads along Forest Parkway, which is the parkway with the widest tree canopy in the neighborhood and, on this one Sunday, the best block party in East Denver.
If you are new to Park Hill and want a shortcut to meeting neighbors, this is the day. Proceeds go to the Greater Park Hill Community (GPHC), a volunteer-based registered neighborhood organization that promotes the character and vibrancy of Park Hill, provides resources, information and advocacy, and preserves the quality of life and history of the neighborhood. GPHC is also the group behind the free monthly Greater Park Hill News that lands on your porch and behind the smaller-scale events across the year — the Park Hill Yard Sale in May, Park Hill Garden Walk in June, Park Hill Parade in July, and the Park Hill Community Fall Festival. If you have never been on the tour, this is a fine year to change that: the homes on the route are usually a mix of the Tudors, brick four-squares, and mid-century experiments that make the neighborhood recognizable from three blocks away.
The takeaway for people who already live here
Park Hill's center of gravity is inside the neighborhood right now, not on its western edge. The park will get there. The design phase is real, the funding is real, and the fences are coming down in stages. But for this summer and fall, the interesting decisions are being made on Kearney and Colfax, by independent operators who chose these blocks on purpose. The move is to spend money at them while the choosing still matters.
If you are thinking about your home itself this fall — a renovation you have been putting off, a curiosity about what your block is actually trading at, or a quiet conversation about what a Home-Tour-caliber sale would look like on your street — Kelli Barton Real Estate knows these blocks house by house. Reach out when you are ready, and in the meantime, receive exclusive listings in your inbox.
