Littleton's public survey on the Main Street redesign opens Monday, Oct. 5, and closes Nov. 2. Those four weeks overlap almost exactly with downtown's densest stretch of the year. Pumpkins go up on the light poles, skeletons appear on the lampposts, the Haunts of Littleton tours walk the blocks after dark, and costumed kids go from shop to shop on Goblin Giveout night. The city has authorized about $32.6 million for the project, and one of the five outcomes council was asked to weigh is "event flexibility." So anyone downtown for the October events this year will be using the street in the very way the survey asks about.
The survey opens with an in-person event. The joint Project Main Street and Project PARKing open house runs Oct. 5 from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Half Moon Room at Arapahoe Community College, 5900 S. Santa Fe Drive.
A season closed just before the survey opens
The first Downtown Littleton Farmers Market wrapped up Saturday, Sept. 26. All summer it put nearly 40 curated food and farm vendors on Nevada Street between Main and Powers, Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Downtown Littleton Wine Walks, also new this year, held their last 2026 date the evening before, Sept. 25, from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. The walk runs through participating shops and starts at Denver Beer Co., 2409 W. Main.
Both are the kind of event the redesign talks about. The market takes over a side street for a morning, and the wine walk moves foot traffic from one storefront to the next. Their first seasons had just ended, ahead of the survey's opening.
The survey window, week by week
This is what happens on and around Main Street while the survey is open:
- Oct. 1 to 31, Bones About Town. More than 25 skeletons go up on downtown lampposts, with weekly gift-card drawings and a $250 grand prize drawn Oct. 31.
- Early October through Halloween, Pumpkin Poles. Downtown merchants display them on Main, Alamo and Prince streets. The exact start date depends on how the pumpkins are holding up.
- Oct. 5, the open house and survey launch at ACC.
- Oct. 16, 17, 23 and 24, Haunts of Littleton. The 24th annual walking tour runs 7 to 9:30 p.m. and starts downtown. One downtown calendar entry has listed a different date, so check the ticketing page before you plan around a particular night.
- Oct. 25, Goblin Giveout. From 5 to 7 p.m., children in costume trick-or-treat at participating shops and restaurants.
- Oct. 31, Halloween at Tonic Zero Proof Bar, 11 a.m. to midnight.
- Nov. 2, the survey closes.
What "event flexibility" means for these particular events
The Project Downtown Concept Plan, adopted in November 2024, covers Main Street from Rapp Street to Rio Grande Street. Between Curtice and Prince, it calls for a curbless, raised, specially paved section that can close to cars temporarily for special events. It does not describe closing the street permanently. A council presentation this month listed four event-flexibility options: the curbless street, broad hardscape areas, an iconic landmark, and festival lighting.
Laid next to the fall calendar, those options line up with what each event physically uses:
| Event | What it uses on the street | Related piece of the project |
|---|---|---|
| Bones About Town | Downtown lampposts | Streetlights, lighting and electrical work, festival lighting |
| Pumpkin Poles | Poles on Main, Alamo and Prince | Streetlights, lighting |
| Goblin Giveout | Sidewalks and shop entrances | Sidewalks, access to building thresholds |
| Haunts of Littleton | Walking routes after dark | Pedestrian circulation, lighting |
| Candlelight Walk | Parade route and Bowles Plaza | Temporary event closures, event hardscape |
The project's baseline already includes drive lanes, curbside parking, loading and drop-off areas, sidewalks at least 5 feet wide with ADA access to building thresholds, streetlights, trees and landscaping, and traffic signals. Wider sidewalks, bulb-outs, raised crosswalks, patios, event hardscape, festival lighting and gateways are listed as possible enhancements. The baseline gets built regardless. The enhancements are where the city still has to decide how to spend the money, and council will see cost-informed design options in January 2027.
Council held a study session on these priorities Sept. 22. As of this week, the minutes are still in draft and no video has been posted. The staff report said the session was not meant to select a design or set a final funding split.
The fall calendar has shaped downtown work before
The idea that downtown's fall events affect construction planning is already on the record. In a packet for the Oct. 8, 2024 city council meeting, a Denver Water pipe-replacement plan said the city had a limited construction window on Main Street because of third- and fourth-quarter events and merchants, and it proposed night work to keep disruption down.
For the Main Street Improvements themselves, construction timing hasn't been set. The city has not decided when work would start, how long it would last, where or when closures would happen, or how it would be phased. The project page says the team is still evaluating phasing options meant to keep downtown businesses accessible. Any construction schedule you hear before January is a guess.
Parking is the other long-running question. During the concept planning, stakeholders were split on giving up Main Street parking for pedestrian and social space, and the plan concluded that a parking-management strategy was needed. The Littleton Downtown Development Authority supported the preferred concept and its major projects. Main Street business owner Margie Drake told council that fewer parking spaces could make it harder for customers to reach downtown, especially those coming from outside the immediate neighborhood. Councilmember Gretchen Rydin said the parking needs of workers, visitors and tourists should be understood before engineering moves forward. That work now sits with Project PARKing, which is also looking at parking during and after construction. A separate Business Parking Survey is already open on Let's Talk Littleton.
The October events that don't depend on Main Street
Part of the season happens away from downtown, which makes it easier to see which events rely on the street itself.
- Littleton Craft Fair, Oct. 3, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Ketring Park. More than 250 artisan booths this year, plus acoustic music for the first time.
- Woof-o-Ween, Oct. 4, noon to 3 p.m. at Aspen Grove, 7301 S. Santa Fe Drive. Dog costume contests, treats, and food and beer for the people, with proceeds going to Pepper's Senior Dog Sanctuary. The seasonal BARBOX next to Alamo Drafthouse at Aspen Grove is open through Oct. 17.
- Harvest Festival, Oct. 10, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Littleton Museum, 6028 S. Gallup St. Entry is free. Pumpkins, wagon rides and some activities cost extra.
- Magic of the Jack O'Lanterns, through Nov. 1 at Hudson Gardens, 6115 S. Santa Fe Drive. An illuminated pumpkin trail with food, drinks and s'mores.
Each of these has its own grounds and would work the same way whatever happens to Main Street. The downtown events need the street itself: poles to hang things on, sidewalks wide enough for a group of trick-or-treaters, and blocks that can close for a parade.
New storefronts on the blocks under review
Several downtown businesses opened in the months leading up to the survey. Leaves on Main opened Sept. 5 at 2699 Main St. as an indoor-plant shop that also sells books and plant-related goods. Founder Nancy Szilagyi told the Littleton Independent she wanted to build a community space around plants. Lewis and Cluck came back downtown to 5827 S. Rapp St. after several years on South Broadway, under new owner Steve Skundberg. Tonic Zero Proof Bar, at 5767 S. Rapp St., is open daily from 8 a.m. to midnight.
On the west wall of 2490 Main St., Katy Casper's mural Those That Carried Us Here covers roughly 2,420 square feet. It is the first major piece in the DDA's new public-art program. Two established Main Street shops, iN-TEA and Spell Books, are running a joint "Cozy Season" promotion from September through November, with monthly tea and book themes, discounts at each other's stores, poetry nights, and author events in November.
After the survey closes
The downtown events of late November all come after the survey closes. The Downtown Littleton events calendar lists Pink Friday on Nov. 20. The city's Candlelight Walk is Friday, Nov. 27, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The parade starts at 6:30, and a drone show follows the tree lighting at Bowles Plaza. Small Business Saturday follows on Nov. 28 in historic downtown. Comments on how the street handles that parade route have to go in by Nov. 2, before the parade happens. You can find the project page, and the survey once it goes live Oct. 5, at Let's Talk Littleton. Local coverage of the project's priorities is in The Badger's September report. For more on the neighborhood, see our Littleton guide.
Our family has worked in Littleton for decades, and we follow Main Street's planning closely because downtown affects the homes around it. If you own near the historic district and want to talk through how the project's timeline fits your own plans, Shannon Petrone and the team are glad to sit down with you. We can start with a free home valuation.
