The Mayor's Mixtape
Mayor Heather Graham's weekly brief of current events related to the City of Pueblo.
The Mayor's Mixtape
The Mayor's Mixtape-Episode 37
Mayor Heather Graham hosts Cherish Deeg, Interim Executive Director of Pueblo Urban Renewal Authority (PURA). Cherish shares about the role of PURA in Pueblo, explains Tax Increment Financing (TIF), her favorite PURA project in Pueblo and other exciting projects on the horizon. How has the City of Pueblo and PURA partnered together to address blight in the community? Find out about the dog track project and the Convergys project.
Don't forget you can email questions or topic suggestions to mayor@pueblo.us. Thanks for listening!
Okay. Welcome to the 37th episode of the Mayor's Mixtape. I'm Haley Sue Robinson, Director of Public Affairs.
Mayor, Heather Graham:I'm a City of Pueblo Mayor Heather Graham.
Haley Sue Robinson:You almost forgot who you were?
Mayor, Heather Graham:Yeah.
Haley Sue Robinson:Or who you are today. We also have a guest today, Interim Executive Director of Pueblo Urban Renewal Authority, Cherish Dieg. Welcome to the podcast.
Cherish Dieg:Thank you.
Haley Sue Robinson:Before we get into the episode, just want to remind you that you can find this podcast on BuzzSprout, Apple, YouTube, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast, you can also watch it on channel 17. So there's lots of opportunities to like, subscribe, and share the podcast. And don't forget, if you have questions or you want to suggest a topic for Mayor Graham to cover, you can email us mayor@pueblo.us. Okay. Cherish, we're excited. Welcome you to the Mayor's Mixtape. Um before we jump into our questions with you, let's take a little bit of time to understand what is the Pueblo Urban Renewal Authority, or PURA, as a lot of folks refer to you guys as. What's the role of PURA?
Cherish Dieg:Sure. I think that's kind of a deep question. Urban Renewal in general is authorized under the Colorado Revised Statutes. And we were created in Pueblo in 1959. And our component unit of the city. We are authorized within certain geographical areas of the city, which are approved by City Council, to eliminate blight and to help prevent blight in those areas specifically. And to do that, we use tax increment financing, which is the increment of property taxes, real and personal, as well as sales taxes. And so once an area is created, there's a base on that property tax, and any growth is sent to the authority to use in that area for those purposes.
Mayor, Heather Graham:And how many districts are there like that in Pueblo that you're able to do that with?
Cherish Dieg:17 currently.
Mayor, Heather Graham:That's a lot. I don't think I knew that.
Haley Sue Robinson:Wow.
Cherish Dieg:Potentially three more coming up.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay.
Cherish Dieg:Yeah.
Haley Sue Robinson:Um, so when you talk about tax increment financing, that's something then that folks refer to as TIFF.
Cherish Dieg:TIFF, yes.
Mayor, Heather Graham:Um not TIF any.
Cherish Dieg:Right.
Haley Sue Robinson:I just I I think one thing when it comes to government, we have all these acronyms and then we use them when we're all in the room together, but then we talk to what I would consider like normal folks, and they have no idea what we're talking about. Instead of it's like a secret language. So um I just like to explain what all these things mean. Okay. Um I know we could get much, much deeper into all of that, but uh tell us about uh a PURA project that you're proud of.
Cherish Dieg:Oh, you know.
Mayor, Heather Graham:There's so many.
Cherish Dieg:There are so many, and it's kind of pro
Haley Sue Robinson:I'll say projects if you can't choose one.
Cherish Dieg:I think that's kind of like asking a teacher to choose their favorite student. Um I think they all have their strengths and all have their challenges. So I think that I will say that I'm most proud of our growth in general, our um collaboration, our our movement towards being more collaborative, um, both with the change in the urban renewal statute requiring the um coordination with the taxing entities with House Bill 1348, 15-1348, and with just our work with the city and the county and everyone in our projects, and just being more collaborative in nature instead of just the heavy hand of government. So I think that that's really the thing that I am most proud of is our growth in that area as well as just making sure that the community is involved in our projects and doing public meetings and hearing from the public before we just take action. So I think that's one of our focuses. Definitely the staff have had a lot of conversation about um community involvement and partnership.
Haley Sue Robinson:I think um one one project you've done in recent years that I I think is just a really excellent way of showing collaboration amongst a couple of entities is like the Dutch Clark project. You know, like you have Trees Please, you have District 60, you have the City, you have um PURA. And I look at Dutch Clark, that's you know, such a historical and personal gem to so many people. And I think a lot of folks maybe don't even realize that that was a PURA project, right? And so and that's kind of why I think it's perfect. To your point of like it doesn't feel so government focused, it's very community-minded, and it's something that a lot of folks are really proud of.
Cherish Dieg:Yeah. Um it touches so many lives.
Haley Sue Robinson:That's exactly. And you know, one of the things that we always ask in Pueblo is where did you go to high school? And um, and Dutch Clark is one of those um, you know, kind of I d I I guess like anchor institutions of Pueblo. And so I I think that's a place where a lot of folks can just have a lot of pride. And then to see the growth at a at a location that it means so much to so many people is really is just really neat.
Cherish Dieg:Yeah, I think that Dutch Clark is also a very cool project. It's a really good example of where some dollars that are brought into a project can incentivize and bring other dollars. So you have trees, please that just injected a small amount, and then Urban Renewal's dollars injected more, and then School District 60 brought more, and the city, and so it's just it kind of waterfalls into a much larger improvement project, and that's exactly what Urban Renewal does in coordination with all of these other partners. It takes a village, it's never a one-person, one entity project, it's usually multiple entities.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah. So speaking of um multiple entities, so Mayor Graham, when you came into office, one uh one project that you really pushed along quickly was that East Side duplex project with PURA. Can you talk a little bit about the process with that?
Mayor, Heather Graham:Yeah, so when I was on City Council, um the authority and the city decided to look at some lots that were owned uh within the different districts, specifically on the east side. Um city lots that we either acquired by lien or um we purchased, and being able to take that property and then give it to uh the authority who then put it to a better use. So that process happened while I was over city council giving the properties to the authority. Um the authority came in, found an end user, built the duplexes, um, and now we're working on acquiring more lots um in that same area to maybe do some additional workforce or uh attainable housing. Um in some of those empty lots that we see on the same block. Um and I think that that's something that the community um wants, needs. Um was really the focus of the of the authority over the last couple years was these demonstration projects with attainable housing.
Cherish Dieg:Yeah, and those houses went up really fast. Um we
Mayor, Heather Graham:They're nice.
Cherish Dieg:I think we got them from the city in March of last year, and then we had houses on them by December. Um, and then we worked with Posada, and they had tenants by January. Um, so they are working, we're working through the Posada actually acquiring them still. So there's been some back and forth about that acquiring, but they're working through financing, and hopefully we're gonna get that finalized and be able to move that project to fully completion in the early portion of 2026.
Haley Sue Robinson:And I I think that's another project when you look at most of the time when folks think about government, they just think about how slowly we move. And so while in the background, it might have moved really slowly, but to your point, Cherish, when uh when the actual duplexes were put on the property from March to December, that's that's really fast. And then to have tenants by January, um it also kind of renews people's hope in what can happen and how quickly a timeline can go when partnerships come together.
Mayor, Heather Graham:Yeah, government works as fast as the people um in control of it. So um if you want to see something done, I mean it's it's a long process, it's city council, um it's if the property needs abatement or you have to go through the lien process. But I mean if it's a goal and it's the same shared goal that everybody wants, I think it's it can get done much quicker that way.
Cherish Dieg:Yeah, there is a process, but as long as everyone knows the process, you can move forward with that process quickly. Yep. It's just making sure the process is known and that steps aren't missed so you don't have to go back and fix the process. So um luckily that site didn't have any abatement, so it did get to move quick quicker than some of the other projects that the city and Urban Renewal are trying to undertake moving forward. But yeah, that one was nice.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so let's talk about um two projects that are you know kind of on the horizon slash in in process now. Um we have the the dog track project and then we have the Convergies project. Um, and both of those have been blighted areas in Pueblo for a number of years with kind of unique opportunities to restore them in in different ways. So let's start with the dog track project um and kind of how that um came to be with PURA and the city.
Mayor, Heather Graham:Yeah, so um some investors purchased that project like two years ago, probably wa s around the time, same time I became the mayor, and they came to the authority, they came to the city, they came to uh PEDCO and were looking for some different incentives, um, trying to figure out what their end project was gonna look like. Um nothing really happened over over the last two years, and then um over the summer there had been some dollars that Pura had allocated for blight removal within that uh Lake Minequa district. Um, and so you know I had the idea of will the authority work with the city in a partnership to help get this large blighted building down. Uh this building, they were having uh trouble with the in-house, so they were having fires, all their copper was stolen, uh windows smashed, trailers uh parked out on there illegally, just uh just a complete dump site. And so the city has some ARPA dollars, ARPA interest dollars, um, that we had used for similar projects for blight removal. We took down a uh the old Pueblo Community Health Center um on the east side with these same this same fund. And so um the authority and the city kind of got together and said, Hey, what would this partnership look like if we were to help this uh developer remove this blighted piece of property? Number one, because it's blighted and it's an eyesore to the rest of the community, but number two, then maybe we could jumpstart um some development. So this is something the city and the authority have been working on for several months. The city passed uh through our city council um allocating um the funds, pending a development agreement with the developer, and then I think that the authorities uh planning on budgeting some um funds for their 2026 budget uh to help with the demo of this project.
Cherish Dieg:Yeah, the board's taking action um this month to budget for 2026, uh do an approval for that, and we're looking at budgeting the requested amount, hopefully, for this project from the city and and partnering in this demo, um, getting this site down, clearing it, hopefully prepping it for future development, working on planning for maybe, you know, a much larger project and maybe even a future urban renewal in this area. Um so much larger planning efforts than just yeah this one site.
Mayor, Heather Graham:This is just the start.
Cherish Dieg:Yeah, this is just very much the beginning.
Mayor, Heather Graham:And that that entire area I mean the community has seen tons of new businesses um open. I was just driving through uh the area yesterday and I see that they are uh digging the hole for Les Schwab tires. So that's exciting. And then I see the fence going up next to the Starbucks um for the Chipotle uh foundation. So I think that that strip of the boulevard is um we're gonna see some some large development, and so to be able to knock down um the dog track and have that property available now for future development is huge.
Cherish Dieg:And it's always been known that there's more infrastructure needs on that southern portion of the boulevard, and so hopefully we can make an urban renewal area work, even if it is after this current district, because we only have seven years left in the current urban renewal area, and so it would be a new, much smaller or different area that would encompass maybe the dog track and additional area to help with that infrastructure, etc.
Haley Sue Robinson:So and I'm I'm glad you brought up the the timeline Cherish. So can you talk a little bit about what those timelines are and explain to folks like when you say there's seven years left? What is that what does that mean?
Cherish Dieg:Yeah, so TIFF, when you create an urban when city council approves an urban renewal plan, the TIFF clock has a 25-year time span. Okay. Um so once you're approved your base year, and then you have 25 years of receiving that TIFF in that area. And so Lake Minnequa, the current boundaries, the TIF in that area has eight or seven years left, eight in 2025. But um, so we have seven years and after that the TIFF stops. The plan, the urban renewal plan still lives on, just the TIFF itself stops flowing to the authority. So moving to a different district to or an urban renewal area to maybe change the area that hasn't been developed, work with the city and our partners to see if there is a different area that hasn't been developed, that needs the infrastructure or um other types of investment working with our tax entities, that's on the future. Um but we do have those seven years left, so we're trying to be very creative and collaborative in those efforts. So this is a good example. I mean, the city has already approved the $500,000, and so if we can offset that and make those dollars go further with the current TIFF, and then we're also trying to use the capacity in this area for other projects, so C DOT improvements for the Les Schwab and the Starbucks. Um, so helping that north side of the street as well as just not just the south side of Pueblo Boulevard. So there's a lot of development happening along that corridor and trying to kind of all the regional type improvements that are extraordinary for a developer, those are the kinds of things that Urban Renewal tries to incentivize, not just normal development.
Haley Sue Robinson:Because it benefits everyone in the area.
Cherish Dieg:Exactly.
Haley Sue Robinson:Great, okay, cool. Um, all right, well, let's now talk about the Convergies project and and kind of what that looks like. Uh Mayor, I know you and I have discussed this uh a couple of times about what it will look like with the Circle K on the property, um, and then um the city uh getting some of that land back so that we can um work with a housing developer. Um Cherish, what does this mean for the future of the Colorado Smelter Urban Renewal Area?
Cherish Dieg:So this one's an interesting one. I know that uh Melissa Cook with Housing has presented a couple times, and and it's it's one of those that the stars have to align and the timing has to be perfect. So we're really watching this one. Um I'm not saying it can't happen. Um we just have to be really careful and things have to be perfectly timed and and it might grow and change. So our current thought is that uh the property is currently being demolished.
Mayor, Heather Graham:They got their permit from the state yesterday.
Cherish Dieg:Right.
Haley Sue Robinson:Oh, that's exciting. Okay.
Mayor, Heather Graham:So it's going down. Yeah.
Cherish Dieg:Depending on how fast development moves, which we know it can move fast, it also can move not so fast.
Haley Sue Robinson:Sure.
Cherish Dieg:Um, we could potentially go back to the taxing entities and try to reset the base year because that's a new urban rural area. We created it last year.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah.
Cherish Dieg:And try to capture the base off of that project with the the building value at zero with the building being demolished. However, if the they build quickly, the value will increase, and so we will lose that window of opportunity if they build quickly. So it's kind of one of those timing things, and so we're watching it, and this program might develop. But yes, we're we're hoping that this will be a catalyst project in this area to help inject TIFF opportunities to help other projects within the Colorado Smelter Project and Northern Avenue area. Um, we're working on several other things as well as some infill housing, all kinds of
Mayor, Heather Graham:maybe some rehab of buildings on northern
Cherish Dieg:definitely trying to be creative and and collaborative. This area really truly use can use it.
Haley Sue Robinson:So that's kind of another example of how um in one area when we when we went back, we go back to the Pueblo Boulevard project, like so you have that south area that's then kind of benefiting the the northern area. Um, and then we go to the Colorado Smelter um urban renewal area, and the benefit will not just be for that property, it will be for folks that are designated within that urban renewal area, correct?
Cherish Dieg:Yeah, so that's the general kind of process of an urban renewal area. So we have large urban renewal areas and we have small urban renewal areas. So larger urban renewal areas, urban renewal TIFF is calculated as a whole. So if you have a burned-out building and you have a million-dollar, you know, building that goes up two blocks down, they both offset each other. So you have value increase and you have value decrease. So that is all calculated within the TIFF. So that's why you have to be careful and you have to create urban renewals areas very strategically. So you have to know what you're trying to do. And if you're trying to incentivize a specific development, it's more beneficial to have a smaller district because it's easier to estimate and calculate what that TIFF could be because you're not having that offset by someone else's property or somebody else's um change of use or things like that. Um because you do have 25 years. 25 years is a long time.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah
Cherish Dieg:and things change. So you have big ones, small ones. This one is quite quite large, Colorado smelter. So it's not small, and you do have a lot of burned buildings. We've seen that a lot of blight. And so we do hope that we can offset some of that with some of these catalyst projects.
Haley Sue Robinson:Cool. That's exciting. So then an example of a a smaller district, would that be like the Dillon Drive? Um, or is that kind of similar size?
Cherish Dieg:It's it is smaller, um, and it is more focused to a specific development, but I would say more like our Bluffs project.
Haley Sue Robinson:Got it.
Cherish Dieg:Um and it is specific to a single development, and it will be a single parcel, and um they're working on housing as well there. So that one's a cool project coming up too.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay. I just it it's it's nice to be able to explain to folks so they can conceptualize, like, okay, there's this area and this area, which one's bigger? Are they similar?
Cherish Dieg:It's not necessarily size because you have the what we still call Evraz, but it's Rocky Mountain Rail now, is a large site, but it is a single site.
Haley Sue Robinson:Sure.
Cherish Dieg:And then you have Bluffs, which is a they're all single project urban renewal areas. But then you have Downtown Expanded or Lake Minnequa or Colorado Smelter, which are larger and more general in nature. And so it just they each have their own quirks, and you can't really look at square footage of land or acreage um because some of them are much larger, especially when you when you bring in the rail mill.
Haley Sue Robinson:And now we understand why there are 17. But I'm like now you're kind of blowing my mind of okay, these are all the same things. Yeah, exactly. Wonderful.
Mayor, Heather Graham:Well, uh we we you know, when I I went to CML in um June and they had a a class on TIFF, and um, you know, Pablo was specifically mentioned as being one of one of the communities that had the most uh TIFF districts, like in all of Colorado. So
Cherish Dieg:Colorado Springs has more than us though.
Mayor, Heather Graham:But for the size of us to have, you know,
Cherish Dieg:Yeah. That's true.
Mayor, Heather Graham:They were like, there's a lot going on in Pueblo, and and I'm just sitting in the audience listening, you know, and I'm like, huh, that's that's interesting compared to all the other communities in Colorado that Pueblo was being mentioned today, and it was just about all the opportunity for revitalization, development. Um that that was cool to hear.
Haley Sue Robinson:I think sometimes it's helpful to hear from an outside perspective because we you know, we hear in Pueblo from each other, and and then it kind of becomes like a little vacuum. And then to hear other communities talk about us and say, have you seen what Pueblo's doing? They're doing some really cool projects. Or have you ever tried what Pueblo has done? They've been successful at this. Um and it kind of gives us an opportunity to pat ourselves on the back. So it's pretty cool that we you heard that at CML.
Mayor, Heather Graham:Yeah, I was like, yeah, I'm I'm from Pueblo.
Cherish Dieg:We are yeah, I'm proud of it. We work with DCI, downtown Colorado Inc., to do a TIFF summit every year in Pueblo.
Mayor, Heather Graham:We just had that, right?
Cherish Dieg:We did, we did in October. Usually it's in October every year. And um, that's one of the things that's really great about that is we do get to see and hear from all of the urban renewals, the DDAs, and other people that work in this space, Brownsfields, um, from all over the state. And they come in and it's really encouraging to hear from other people, the creative things that they do, and just it's always fun. Um, Andrea in our office actually has one like one of those word clouds of all the fun things that they they said that they love about Pueblo. Um, so we'll share it with you guys.
Mayor, Heather Graham:Yeah, that'd be great.
Cherish Dieg:Super fun about this last TIFF Summit, and I really want to have them back and and do some more work with them because it's definitely good to hear from outside point of views because sometimes we just forget that Pueblo is cool, and just because we have some issues doesn't mean that it's not a great place.
Mayor, Heather Graham:Right.
Haley Sue Robinson:Right. Or or sometimes we get stuck in the narrative of like we think this is the only thing that we can do, and and then have an outside perspective of someone else who has had a successful project or even just a new set of eyes. I know at that same um TIFF summit you all did like a bus tour with some folks, and um and that we always hear just incredible things when when folks have the opportunity to tour Pueblo because they see Pueblo through completely different eyes than those of us who live and work here every day. Um whether we're from here forever or have been here quite some time, sometimes you it just takes a a fresh perspective of folks to show us what we kind of forgot.
Cherish Dieg:Yeah, we do um pure tours, we call them pure tours, so Pueblo Urban Renewal Education Tours.
Haley Sue Robinson:Those are so cool.
Cherish Dieg:So that was the tour that we went on, and those are fun.
Haley Sue Robinson:Um do we have any pure tours on the horizon?
Cherish Dieg:Um we're planning for 2026, so we don't have any scheduled at this moment, but um we will I'm sure we'll have several coming up.
Haley Sue Robinson:I just I I think those are really unique opportunities for people to see what we're doing in Pueblo. And you know what's interesting too is as small as Pueblo is, we get very um segmented into like our daily routine of where we go and the stores we go to, and and then we don't realize the things that are oh there's an there's a new opportunity on the east side, or oh, I never go to the boulevard because I do my shopping on the north side. I didn't even realize there were so many things happening over there.
Cherish Dieg:Or I've never driven through the east side.
Haley Sue Robinson:Sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So um it's exciting. Um Cherish, is there anything else that you feel like we can educate the listener about with PURA? I mean, there's more, but I just mean is there anything else you would like to share right now?
Cherish Dieg:There's always more. Um I think that just keep watching, keep looking for things. We're working on a lot of things that are hopefully gonna come out in 2026. Um, so just don't hesitate to reach out. It's always better to ask questions than to assume. So um we're always available. Call, come by the office, knock on the door,
Haley Sue Robinson:follow on Facebook, on LinkedIn,
Cherish Dieg:yeah.
Haley Sue Robinson:All those things. Andrea would be upset if I didn't mention how to find you all.
Cherish Dieg:Yes. So um, we're definitely gonna be rolling out some new marketing and um communications in 2026. At least that's the plan right now. Um, so look for more.
Haley Sue Robinson:Great, that's exciting. Anything else you want to add, Mayor?
Mayor, Heather Graham:No, I think that's it.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay, cool.
Mayor, Heather Graham:Exciting stuff on on the front range.
Haley Sue Robinson:It is very exciting. Um, a couple of upcoming events. Um, it is November. It's I mayor, I know this is one of your favorite times of year, so we have lots of exciting things. Yours too. Great. Um, one thing that I do want to mention is uh if folks don't know, Public Transit has extended free rides for SNAP recipients through December 15th. So individuals or households uh just need to show their EBT card, and then you're eligible to uh have a free ride with public transit through December 15th. Um also upcoming for us, Cherish, you mentioned you're in budget season, we are too. So second reading of uh the budget is on Monday, November 24th. Um we have the county courthouse lighting on Tuesday next week, which is exciting. Yep. Uh Riverwalk lighting on Friday, right after Thanksgiving. Uh, then Pueblo Parade of Lights on Saturday. So if you don't like holidays or Christmas or lights, don't go outside next week because that's when we light up Pueblo and it's awesome. Um and then also uh Mayor, last week we had the installation of the Boys and Girls Club um artwork here in the office. So I just want to encourage folks to come see that until the second week of December. Um we got to talk to the students last week and they shared with you kind of their um
Mayor, Heather Graham:their inspirations.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah, it was it was really sweet. Um so I would encourage folks to come check that out. We have 10 pieces um from students in Pueblo County and various clubhouses with Boys and Girls Club. Yeah, it's really cool. Um okay. Well, thank you for a great episode. Uh, I'd like to invite our listeners to email us with questions. Or topic suggestions, mayor@ pueblo.us. You can find us on Apple, YouTube, Spotify, BuzzSprout, wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch us on channel 17. Please like, subscribe, and share with your friends. And we will see you next week.