The City of Loveland's weekly HIP Streets update for Oct. 12 through 18 reads like a project that is almost done. Block 4, between Cleveland Avenue and Railroad Avenue, is still closed to cars, but the businesses are open on foot and crews are down to punch-list items. Permanent sculptures are going back onto Blocks 1, 2, 3 and 5. A few lines down, the same update lists a sidewalk closure at 225 E. 4th Street and files it under "non-project related work."
That label divides downtown into two schedules. The city's part, meaning new pavement, utilities, pavers and string lights, is on track to finish in November. The part that decides where you'll eat, drink and spend a Friday night on Fourth Street in 2027 is happening inside privately owned buildings that are more than a century old. Those projects set their own schedules, and the past two weeks showed how fast one of them can slip.
What the City Finishes Before Festival of Lights
The Heart Improvement Plan has rebuilt Fourth Street one block at a time. Block 3, between Lincoln and Cleveland and home to the Rialto Theater, reopened to traffic and parking on July 24. It was the fourth of five blocks. Work there began in December 2025 with water, stormwater, power, telecom and gas lines, followed by level sidewalks and better pedestrian crossings. In a September report, the Loveland Reporter-Herald said the project was still on track for November and that BNSF's work at the railroad crossing would not change that schedule. For now, the crossing is fully closed to vehicles and pedestrian routes over the tracks are shifting. November is still a forecast. No firm reopening day for Block 4 has been announced.
Some familiar pieces of the street are coming back as the work wraps up. The city says the historic Fourth Street clock is being professionally restored with Downtown Development Authority funding and will be reinstalled near its old spot. The official downtown Christmas tree will stand in front of the Rialto again this holiday season. Both were city forecasts as of July.
The sculptures are the other returning piece. In June, Loveland's Visual Arts Commission reviewed planned spots for permanent Art in Public Places works along each block, and its September minutes describe the work as a reinstallation.
- Block 1, Washington to Jefferson: Factory Worker by Regier, at the northwest corner of Washington Avenue
- Block 2, Jefferson to Lincoln: Monkey Business by George Lundeen near Lundeen Studios, and Dreaming of the Kiss by Kim Kori at Fourth and Lincoln
- Block 3, Lincoln to Cleveland: Campana by Joe Allred and Persistence of Vision by Pat Kennedy
- Block 5, Railroad to Garfield: Separation by Emad Boback and Pondering Chimpanzee by Darrel Davis
These are the planned placements from the commission's June minutes. Exact corners are listed only for the Block 1 and Block 2 pieces.
The street's first big night is Friday, Nov. 20, from 5 to 8 p.m. The Loveland Downtown District says this year's Festival of Lights will be held "on the newly completed 4th Street." It includes the holiday lighting debut, a tree lighting, live reindeer, a holiday market and carriage rides. Floats on 4th returns for a second year and adds two blocks to the festival. Floats park along both curbs, the center of the street stays open for walking, and marching bands and dancers move through the crowd.
Behind the Facades, Buildings Share Walls
The roof collapse at 225 E. Fourth St. shows why the private projects carry more risk than the public one. The Reporter-Herald reported that on the afternoon of Wednesday, Sept. 30, a contracted worker running machinery inside the future Rio Grande restaurant struck a support beam, and part of an interior roof came down. Nobody was hurt. In the same article, Loveland Fire Rescue Authority said that because the buildings on that stretch are connected, a further shift in the leaning beam could bring down a shared wall. Structural engineers had the two neighboring spaces, Lighthouse Dance and Independence Gallery, vacated until the building could be shored up.
As of the Reporter-Herald's Oct. 6 follow-up, both neighboring spaces were still closed, and the gallery was showing work at a nearby studio for the Loveland Art Studio Tour. The fire marshal said she couldn't estimate how long the closures would last until the contractor finished a repair plan. Nothing published since then confirms whether either space has reopened.
Before the collapse, this storefront was a success story. In his Sept. 27 Downtown Dialogue column in the Reporter-Herald, Downtown District executive director Sean Hawkins wrote that the space, formerly Mr. Neats Formalwear, had sat vacant for about 20 years. Construction had started the week before. He expected the "Rio" to "draw hundreds of people to downtown every week," which would help Independence Gallery, The Collab Boutique and Tap and Tavern. The shared wall that will bring those neighbors more foot traffic also tied them to the construction risk.
The Private Calendar, Building by Building
Here is where each downtown project stood as of Oct. 12, 2026, based on the latest public reporting.
| Project | Address | What's happening | Latest public timing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rio Grande | 225 E. Fourth St. | Mexican restaurant going into a storefront vacant about 20 years; partial roof collapse Sept. 30 | "Early next year," per the Oct. 1 Reporter-Herald; "next spring," per the Sept. 27 Hawkins column |
| The Dug and Firkin | 243 E. Fourth St. | British-style brewpub in a building from 1900 | Hoped in mid-September to open within a month; no confirmed date |
| Sky Bear Brewery and Pub | 209 E. Fourth St., moving from 272 E. Fifth St. | Converting offices to a restaurant, roughly doubling to about 6,000 square feet | Steel beams going in as of September; no opening date |
| Echo Brewing and Pizzeria | 409 N. Railroad Ave. | Erie brewpub leasing the 1902 freight depot | Lease signed in April; no timeline announced |
| Bank of Colorado | Third Street and Cleveland Avenue | Nearly 10,000-square-foot branch with a community room opening onto a patio | Move expected mid-November; community event Nov. 20 |
The Dug and Firkin is the closest to opening. In his July 1 Downtown Dialogue column in the Reporter-Herald, Hawkins called the restoration of its 1900 building "extensive and challenging." City licensing records show a brew-pub license application filed July 7, with a hearing notice published Aug. 9. Its own posts in late September still described interior work.
Bank of Colorado shows how far private timelines can drift. Its original announcement forecast a late-summer 2026 grand opening. By September, BizWest was reporting a mid-November move, which puts its event on the same night as the Festival of Lights.
Why Old Buildings Run Slower
In April, Sky Bear co-owner Mark Kissel told BizWest that the brewpub was still waiting on a building permit. He said the holdup was an encroachment easement for a New Orleans-style second-floor balcony that would extend eight feet over the sidewalk. The permit application had been filed in December. The owners bought the building, which they believe dates to about 1915, because "Fourth Street is basically the main street downtown," Kissel said.
Kitchens add cost on top of the permits. In the same report, Hawkins explained that the DDA's restaurant conversion grants, $42,717 for Sky Bear and $31,646 for Echo, come from tax increment financing. He said Sky Bear's building has no kitchen at all, and that the depot Echo leased has a kitchen in poor shape and needs a gas trap for a pizza oven. The depot was built in 1902 by the Colorado and Southern Railway, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and has been empty since Sports Station American Grill closed in fall 2024.
In his September column, Hawkins wrote that a building often stays empty because expected rents don't cover the cost of renovating it. He added that a vacant downtown property can pay half the property taxes of an active neighbor and generates no sales tax. The DDA's tools are fire and life safety grants, facade grants and tax increment financing. He described the work as "a long process where trusting relationships become very important."
More projects are coming. Hawkins named plans to renovate the former 30,000-square-foot Loveland Elks Lodge on Fourth Street and a development taking shape at Third Street and Lincoln Avenue on the former Colotex site. In that same July Reporter-Herald column, he wrote that five more major renovations of downtown's oldest buildings were in planning and expected to start construction later this year. Once the street is done, the construction downtown will be inside these buildings.
Six Weeks of Dates on a Street Still Under Construction
Downtown events are already working around the closures. These are the dates on the calendar between now and the Festival of Lights.
- Oct. 17, 4 to 7 p.m.: The Downtown Loveland Zombie Crawl gathers at Loveland Aleworks before heading through downtown.
- Oct. 17 and 18: Second weekend of the Loveland Art Studio Tour.
- Oct. 18, 3 to 6 p.m.: The OBC Harvest Wine Walk stops at Urban Field, Loveland Tap & Tavern, Sandos, Slice 'n Roll, Door 222 and Vatos Tacos & Tequila.
- Fridays and Saturdays through October: Find Your Fright runs at 333 E. Fourth St. for its 16th year.
- Oct. 24, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.: Trick-or-Treat Street, with candy at participating downtown businesses.
- Mid-November: Bank of Colorado's expected move to Third and Cleveland.
- Nov. 20, 5 to 8 p.m.: Festival of Lights and Floats on 4th.
Find Your Fright and the Wine Walk stops sit near the blocks that are still busy. Walking routes near the tracks and the 225 E. Fourth St. sidewalk closure can change from week to week, and the city posts each week's changes on its HIP Streets project page. For more on the restaurants and events that carried downtown through the summer, see our guide to late-summer weekends in downtown Loveland.
At Scallon Real Estate, we keep track of which downtown buildings are changing hands, getting renovated or getting closer to opening, because those projects shape the blocks around them. If you own a home near downtown Loveland and want to see how this year's changes show up in your property's value, start with a home value estimate and we'll go over the details with you.
