April 9, 2026 City of Boulder City Council Study Session

Boulder Arts Blueprint Report and Recommendations Staff Time: 20 Min

our new cultural plan, the Boulder Arts Blueprint you'll know where Boulder's creative community is headed for the next decade

This is a roadmap for the city and the community for the next 10 years

The Arts Blueprint is very intentionally aligned with the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan update.

The Arts Blueprint is very intentionally aligned with the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan update.

This goal focuses on expanding public art and creative expression across Boulder's public spaces

We will continue to make the grant program more accessible. For example, this year, we have expanded first come, first serve grants

We will continue to support artists who are pushing boundaries through our experiments in public art series

We did sort of an an inflation increase because the amount for each grant hadn't increased since 2020 or before.

do you mean um in terms of um the the community hubs and others that we're calling out in our comp plan uh draft?

we've actually been in discussion with the Community Foundation to roll out a grant over the summer, a collaborative grant

since 2A is tied to sales tax revenues, um and that money is a big driver of implementation

to try to have some external funding um that is not necessarily dependent upon uh tax

the creative campus that BMOCA is is actively working on like like there's opportunities like that

Sundance Film Festival and Sundance Institute are an incredible catalyst for all of this work.

Having Sundance Institute in town uh year-round, that is an entire new workforce of creatives coming into town

the research that we saw it was actually before Sundance Film Festival coming to Boulder was announced

Experiments in public art, but also making it easier for uh artists like emerging artists to have access to funding

think our recent work with the Dairy Center is a good example of that of being able to provide affordable space

that's why we have a 2A in the first place

In March, you discussed the long-term financial strategy and some ballot measures.

By advancing work in the civic area, we should be able to generate some revenue from the sale of buildings

We would propose spreading out projects and funding across the CIP period, so it's roughly $2 million a year.

including the disability community for whom our recreation centers are often their only location for health and well-being

As an example, the North Boulder Recreation Center weight room is just 3,000 square feet.

The current South Boulder Rec Center is home to the smallest lap pool in our system is six lanes.

South Boulder Recreation Center is a vibrant, modern community hub that includes a pool and a gymnasium.

our current uh 6-year CIP, spanning from 2026 to 2031 in the CCRS, or Community Culture Resilience and Safety Tax Fund

including the East Boulder Community Center, Fire Station 2, and Civic Area project.

we are considering tax ballot measures that we will we will be bringing forward to City Council on May 14th

typically though, after we provide an energy efficient building, which is a lower total cost of ownership, um sometimes that difference between electrification is rather negligible

there is a tremendous amount of preserved embodied carbon

how much money we spent on the Alpine Balsam parking garage saving it

our form-based code drove a most of the exterior design decisions

They will consider different kinds of opportunities to phase things because we know we may have to break some of these big building costs down over time

in many of our buildings, they're really far from meeting any kind of current ADA standards

I recall when we were talking about CU South related stuff that there was a conversation about response times

with a future context of the population and density that CU South would bring

in the annexation agreement for CU South, we had a a clause in there a paragraph in there about public safety

in the annexation agreement for CU South, we had a a clause in there a paragraph in there about public safety

I totally get the need to protect embodied carbon

the civic area that the same round of CCRS projects in 2021 that included funding for East included the civic area

isn't designed in a way that is supporting downtown vitality in a way that it could in the way that we see downtown park investments do

a reserve policy of 16.7% across our operating funds, 20% for the general fund

some of that money out of the general fund or from CCRS I should say funnels into other projects

certainly where the DDA fits in. I know that's a long-term revenue generator

I don't really support more boards and commissions in general

think hard about are there budget tradeoffs that we need to know about right now that we're making

that would be the airport coming conversation and area three

that would be the airport coming conversation and area three

I would be very open to thinking differently about how our city brings in revenue beyond ballot measures and sales tax