Windsor Voted to Keep Its Downtown Dirt Lot as Parking. Three Years Later, It's Paved for the Holidays.

North of Main Street, between the backs of the storefronts and the railroad tracks, there's a strip of land that has worked as overflow parking for decades. It runs between Fourth and Seventh streets, and the Greeley Tribune described it as space "used for parking by people doing business with Main Street retailers or visiting the park along the shore of Windsor Lake." For years, the eastern part of that strip, along Ash Street between Fourth and Fifth, was gravel and dirt.

As of this fall, it's paved. Timing is the reason it matters this month. On an ordinary weekday, downtown Windsor has more parking than it fills. Space gets tight around events, close to Boardwalk Park and the Windsor Mill, and that's the area the backlot sits in. The next five weeks have more downtown events than any other stretch of the year.

How a parking lot ended up on the ballot

Before it was a paving project, the backlot was a redevelopment site. The Town of Windsor and the Downtown Development Authority owned the land. They backed a plan called the Downtown Revitalization Project, designed by Tribe Development Co. LLC, that would have put 200 residential units, 435 parking spaces and 12,000 square feet of commercial space on the strip. The Greeley Tribune's report says the town and DDA called it a "catalyst for revitalization" that would bring new jobs and give existing businesses room to grow.

A group of residents wanted the land kept for parking. They first asked the Town Board to create a permanent parking district. When the board said no, they collected 2,255 valid signatures to force a public vote. The Town Board voted unanimously to oppose the measure, and opponents called it a down zoning of the property. The petition itself asked for a new downtown zoning district that would limit the property to parking and parking-related uses.

The special election was held January 24, 2023. The Coloradoan's headline put the result plainly: "Windsor voters overwhelmingly support zoning 'backlots' for parking." Ballot Measure 200 passed. The same story ended its opening with a question: "The big question is, now what?"

According to the Town's 5th St. Back Lot Parking project page, Measure 200 rezoned the dirt lot "to be used solely for parking purposes," ruling out other kinds of development there. That leaves the question of what kind of parking lot it should be.

Downtown has enough parking, just in the wrong places on busy nights

A 2024 Town parking assessment found occupancy was generally low across downtown. It also found hotspots tied to particular places and events, with occupancy climbing in the late afternoon and early evening near the Windsor Mill. In the same study, 71% of observed parkers stayed two hours or less.

Taken together, those numbers describe drivers who come in for dinner, an errand or an event and then leave. They need a space close to where they're going, at the moment everyone else is going there too. The Town Board approved a Downtown Parking Management Plan on June 9, 2025. It chose an incremental approach: more data collection, updates to the municipal code, and more public information about where to park.

The Fourth of July this year showed what a big event does to downtown parking. For the evening celebration at Boardwalk Park, the Town closed Fifth Street north of Main to cars and made it pedestrian-only. The Windsor History Museum and Art & Heritage Center lots became permit-only for vendors and staff. Ash Street closed to traffic except for access to the west backlot near Ash and Sixth. Accessible parking moved to the Boardwalk Park lot, reached from Birch Street. The Town also pointed drivers to more than 1,500 other parking spaces downtown.

On a night like that, there's still parking in Windsor. The spaces closest to the park are what disappear first. The east backlot sits right between Main Street and Boardwalk Park, and on the Fourth it was still a construction zone.

What the 2026 work built

The project page lists a $257,000 budget for the parking lot itself. Bigger projects ran underneath it. Separate Town project pages list a $1,320,000 budget for waterline work and $1,100,000 for sewer replacement, both in the dirt lot east of Fifth Street, south of Boardwalk Park. The Town said it was paving now partly so the lot's surface and the pipes below it would meet modern standards and drain better over the long run.

Here's how the summer went, based on the Town's updates:

1. June 15: The lot east of Fifth Street between Boardwalk Park and Main Street closed through September for waterline replacement, sewer installation and reconstruction of the lot. The Town said the work was funded under voter-approved Measure 200.
2. July 6: Fifth Street closed from Ash Street to Boardwalk Park for waterline replacement.
3. July 30: Crews were installing and testing the waterline, sewer installation was set to start that week, and roadway and surface work would follow once the utilities were finished.
4. August 24: Lane shifts began on Main Street between Third and Fourth for paving the parking stalls, followed by restriping. Crews then moved to the lot behind the businesses.
5. Through September 25: Concrete, paving and roadway restoration closed Fifth Street from Ash Street to Boardwalk Park.
6. October 28: With the project "nearing completion," striping started, with more lane shifts on Main between Third and Fourth.

The Town's site plan for the 5th Street Backlots lot calls for 135 stalls, lighting, pedestrian sidewalks and landscaping around the edges. The construction bid also included streetlights and EV parking. Those are the planned features.

The 2023 vote and this year's work reached the same place by different routes. Neither the Tribe plan nor the petition would have left the lot as gravel. The redevelopment plan included 435 parking spaces of its own. The petition asked for permanent parking. Voters chose the second option, and what's there now is a paved lot over new pipes.

The holiday calendar starts right next to it

The paving finishes as downtown's busiest stretch begins. The Windsor Downtown Alliance calendar listed a Town ribbon cutting for a "New Downtown Parking Lot" at 412 Main Street on Wednesday, Nov. 18, from 1:15 to 1:30 p.m. Starting the next week, the same address is home base for Downtown Santa Visits.

Nearly everything on that list takes place within a few blocks of Main Street, Fifth Street and Windsor Lake, the same area the 2024 assessment flagged for evening crowding. Windsor Wonderland on North Fifth Street is the one most like the Fourth of July in setup, since it's a late-afternoon event right where the backlot meets the park. The Cone Tree Lighting on Dec. 4 is the exception. It's out at the Public Services Facility on North 15th Street, and the Town calendar promises hot chocolate and a chance to see the snowplows up close.

The Town posts closures, lane shifts and lot changes in real time. Text WINDSORROADS and WINDSOREVENT to 888777 for traffic and event alerts. The Town also keeps parking maps at windsorgov.com/DowntownParking. For more on how downtown keeps changing, our post on the corner of 5th and Main covers the storefront side, and our Windsor neighborhood page has the bigger picture.

Here at At Home Realty, we keep an eye on projects like this backlot because they change how a downtown works long before they show up in any listing. If you live near Main Street and are wondering how the paved lot and the downtown parking plan might affect your block, we're happy to talk it through. Schedule a free consultation and we'll share what we're seeing in Windsor.