Think FoCo alleys are boring? Todd Dangerfield wants to change your mind.
Think back to the “classical” hero movies that were before your time, but still lovingly force fed to you during your youth by nostalgic parents wanting to share their culture with you. The classical themes of treasure hunting, car chasing, and gun blasting are expected to be there, of course. So is a protagonist with an exciting, catchy name like Todd Dangerfield.
Although not an old movie star from the classics, the real Todd Dangerfield could still be likened to a 20th century hero, most closely to the all-American Indiana Jones. Perhaps not his Nazi-chasing international hero persona, but his calm, professor alter ego. As the current project manager at the Downtown Development Authority, Dangerfield has a calm and authoritative manner, with a deep and nuanced understanding of urban development of Fort Collins.
In the same way that Dangerfield still has elements of an action hero to him, the alley revitalization project he leads has action movie elements to it, subtle but present. There may not be flurries of bullets, casinos and gratuitous explosions, but some of the staples of an action movie can be seen throughout the story of the Fort Collins alleys. There’s secret walkways and passages behind buildings, there’s the consulting of maps and cryptic images to find clues, there’s the protagonist having to convince a small town to take a leap of faith to trust him and his witty solution to escape impending doom (or, perhaps, just smelly trash.)
Dangerfield certainly views the alley revitalization project with the same interest as an action movie, and his excitement for project is infectious. Throughout the interview in the conference room of the DDA office, his description of the process made it clear how innovative and impactful this project has been for Fort Collins. It’s been the smaller-city version of an adventure.
Dunn: Let’s start broad, and first get a sense of what the alley revitalization project is. Is there any alley that was your favorite or you think demonstrates the program the best?
Dangerfield couldn’t pick just one, and opts to take out his copy of the Alley Master Plan instead, suggesting we start the discussion at the very beginning of the project’s life.
Dangerfield: This was compiled in 2009 and brought to the [Downtown Development Board of Directors]. It was commissioned through Russell + Mills Studios in town, and what it did was it put together a comprehensive inventory of all the alleys. If you go through this, you can see all the alleys that are identified as right of way, or different districts we have in the downtown, you know, an inventory of businesses in the area at the time.
Dunn: That’s extensive.
Dangerfield: It is, it’s a very extensive study of the alley system. The point of this, which you see on the first page here, was to identify alleys as new connectors of points. We’re very lucky, you know, the amount of forward thinking that we have — and really take for granted — over decades. Back in 2004 they were thinking about how we’ll need more modes of transportation as we grow, and that we can use alleys.
Dangerfield: So what’s stopping us from doing that now? Well, they’re dirty, and smelly, and unattractive, and all these other things, right? They were made to provide a primary function. And that function is back of house for businesses and restaurants, right? Delivery, trash, oil waste.
Dangerfield: The concept [of expanding the use of alleys] isn’t new, right? In Europe this is old news. They have the front door, and they have the back door that’s, in some cities, equally as vibrant. The concept is nothing new. It was just new to Fort Collins.
Dunn: When you were first pitching these alleys to the businesses [surrounding them], were you referencing how other cities have tackled alleyways? Like Europe?
Dangerfield: That’s exactly what was done. We have a set of “precedent” photos.
He flipped through the pages of the Master Plan, arriving on a section of images filling several pages. The images are all public places or alleyways, and are covered with red and green colored dots. The strange markings give the photos an intriguing appearance, as if they are a Fort Collins reinvention of a treasure map.
Dangerfield: You see the dots on here?
Dunn: Yeah.
Dangerfield: So what Russell Mills did was they did a spread of sorts, right? They invited a bunch of stakeholders in. You know, I don’t know who it was on the guest list but likely businesses, building civic folks and everything, and in this exercise the guests applied dots green dots the things they liked, red dots to things they didn’t. So they could see what some cities were doing and if they wanted that for Fort Collins. You can see that the green dots are all have a similar look and feel, and we used that information.
How downtown businesses felt about the “radical” renovation efforts was a recurring theme throughout Dangerfield’s interview. Initially, businesses were confused about what the renovations would accomplish, and if they would be a good use of time and money. The DDA had to win their trust, which began with a pilot project in 2006.
Dunn: Where are the first pilots alleys?
Dangerfield: One is Trimble Court, right outside the door of the [the DDA office.] The other is Tenney Court, which is by Clothes Pony, Dandelion Toys, Comment Chicken, you know that areas?
Dunn: Mhm.
Dangerfield: Those two were done in 2006 and people said “Oh my god, you know, now I understand what you’re talking about.” So we commissioned this report to try to create a roadmap going forward and that’s the plan here. [Expanding the scope of the project.] What does the concept of these two small spaces look like on a large scale?
Dunn: For these first businesses, they had no idea what the alleys would look like. Was there a lot of persuasion from your end to get them to agree, or was it just a lot of trust? I image that took a while to convince them to agree.
Dangerfield: Yes, it was about building trust. It was having a small scale conversation, and it was building trust. We sat down with them like this (he was referring to our two-person meeting in the small conference room) with the designer and said: “This is what the concept is.” We had to have those one-on-one conversations. We were building trust from from zero — at that time from absolute zero.
The leap of faith worked. The first two alleys were awarded with praise, and the DDA had set a precedent of success. One noticeable difference was the heightened sense of safety in the previously dark and suspicious areas.
Dunn: While I was researching this topic I had seen this article about how a lot of the worries about safety with alleys are mostly perceived. Like, there’s a stronger perceived fear of danger than there is a real threat. I don’t know if you would have data on the crime rates in local alleys, but have you seen or heard about a change in the perceived safety in these revitalized alleys?
Dangerfield: Definitely. We get that feedback all the time. Like, taking the trash out at 2am you know, for instance, is a lot easier now. Having a clear lit path is important. And getting rid of places for people to hide behind. Like all the dumpsters and stuff that used to be there, all the other equipment has been cleared out. And that leads me into the other big winner for the alleys, which is the consolidation of trash services, recycling services, oil, recycling, all that stuff that gets pulled in to centralize intentional locations, rather than behind every single building that’s back there.
Dangerfield: So now restaurants have to walk their trash over to the collection area instead of outside their door. But the exchange for that is you don’t have these nasty dumpsters, you know. They’re gross, smelly, stinky, this is a big problem in the summertime. Imagine you’re trying to have ice cream on the patio with the smell.
Dunn: So it’s a trade-off.
Dangerfield: Exactly. And it’s been very successful. We collect the trash in our enclosures. They’re decorative enclosures, and they’re pretty nice, you know. We keep them clean. Now, the trash company has a quarter of the number of recycling and garbage containers to go through. It is a little more time in one location, but the trash company likes it, and the businesses like it, because look what you get for it. It’s an operational enhancement. Just by itself. It was a hard talk at first, and it’s still a talk with every business: how they’re going to change their operation. But now we can point to all these different avenues and says this is operationally a success.
The relationship between the DDA and businesses owners moved from skepticism to trust, then approval and now excitement. They idea of alley reconstruction brings with it the promise of more foot traffic, more seating, safer costumers and employees, and the possibility of adding in a small business in the back to cut down on rent.
Dangerfield: Now when we talk to businesses about enhancing their alley in the upcoming year I get “awesome, yeah” instead of “Wait… what are you doing you now? I don’t understand it” or “I’m scared of it” or “I’m mad.” I even have Ace Hardware going “When can you do our leg?”
