What a difference a decade makes. In 1990, Bob Cote's view from his Step 13 alcohol rehab program at 20Th and Larimer streets included rundown bars and street people passed out in alleys and doorways. Today, he looks out his window and sees an art gallery ana furniture store. Ten yeares ago, entrepreneurs John Hickenlooper and Joyce Meskis walked the streets of lower downtown past mostly deserted warehouses. Today, they are locky to find a parking space.

The latest Census data shows that no Denver neighborhood went through as startling a transformation during the 1990s as lower downtown. Six hundred new lofts, apartments and condominiums were carved out of the warehouse district around Coors Field. The population of the area increased by more that 50 percent to 2, 225.