Littleton's Main Street Rebuild Is Years Away. This Fall, the Street Is Already Rearranging Itself.

On the night after Thanksgiving, the Candlelight Walk parade will step off from Alamo and Rapp Streets. It will end at Main and Sycamore, and Santa will light the holiday trees in Bega Park. The city's October Littleton Report lists all three as new this year. No crews have come through yet. The first construction on the city's Main Street makeover is set for mid-2028.

Two different timelines are running on the same few blocks. The redesign Littleton has been planning since 2024 sounds like a 2029 story. The decisions that shape it fall between now and early 2027, though, and the street itself isn't waiting. This fall the parade route changed, a new shop opened on Main and a longtime downtown business moved back. The October calendar is also built around getting people to walk block to block, which is what the redesign is meant to make easier.

What is actually scheduled, and when

The city adopted the Project Downtown concept plan in November 2024 and named Main Street its top-priority project. In 2026 Littleton secured $32.6 million for the work, according to the Let's Talk Littleton project page. The page explains how it was paid for. Council authorized up to $30 million in Certificates of Participation, which sold for $32.8 million and will be repaid from the city's general revenues.

Here is the published sequence:

CBS Colorado reported on October 8 that the concept includes curbless street sections between Curtis Street and Prince Street. It also adds more gathering space and brings back the trees downtown lost to disease. Project director Adrienne Burton told the station the disease "really took out the entire tree canopy downtown." She described a street that could be closed temporarily for events, with "twinkle lights across the street."

Baxter Fain is Central Bank's president and a new business owner on Main Street. He gave CBS Colorado the shortest summary of the concept:

"When you look down Main Street, there's traffic and no trees. With this expansion, these sidewalks get bigger. There is one lane of traffic, trees everywhere and seating areas. So it becomes almost like a residential park, where you can come and park and stay, and all these storefronts will benefit from that."

Several things remain open. The city's design materials don't yet set a final parking layout or patio treatment, and they don't settle whether Main Street's traffic direction changes. A separate study called Project PARKing is still working through parking and curbside needs downtown and along Littleton Boulevard. Burton told CBS Colorado that today, "it's difficult to understand where to park. We don't have those parking signs to direct people where there's service parking."

The parade is the first thing to move

The Candlelight Walk shows most clearly how downtown can shift without a rebuild. The October Littleton Report lays out the 2026 version. Entertainment on Main Street starts at 5 p.m., with performers, musical acts, small bites and photos with Santa. The parade starts at 6:30 p.m. on the new Alamo-and-Rapp to Main-and-Sycamore route. The performance stage moves in front of Grande Station, and the tree lighting moves to Bega Park. After Santa lights the trees, a drone show flies over the Melting Pot at the west end of Main Street. The holiday cocktail for attendees 21 and older is back again this year.

Some city event listings still show older details, including a 5:30 p.m. start and a tree lighting at Bowles Plaza. The October Littleton Report is the one that labels the route, stage and tree location as new this year. If you usually plant chairs in the same spot every November, it's the version to plan around.

Storefronts are filling in ahead of the sidewalks

Businesses are signing up for downtown space now, years before the wider sidewalks. Fain is one example, a new Main Street business owner who spoke in favor of the concept.

Leaves on Main opened September 5 at 2699 Main Street as a plant-and-gift shop. The Littleton Independent reported that founder Nancy Szilagyi saw room locally for a smaller indoor-plant shop and hopes it will be a welcoming community space.

A block off Main, Lewis & Cluck has come back downtown. The chicken feed and supply shop started on Prince Street in 2016 as an offshoot of Lewis and Bark and later spent a few years on South Broadway. It's now at 5827 S. Rapp Street under new owner Steve Skundberg. He told the Littleton Independent that customers "have moved with the store" and that they're "excited that it's brighter, it's newer, it's clean." The shop now sells goat feed alongside chicken supplies.

October is built for walking the blocks

The Littleton Downtown Development Authority's fall programming already works the way the redesign is supposed to. People are pulled from storefront to storefront instead of to one destination. The city's September business newsletter said as much about Bones About Town, describing it as a campaign that encourages people to walk from block to block and spend more time downtown.

Here is what's left between now and Thanksgiving weekend, in order:

1. Bones About Town, through October 31. More than 25 skeletons hang on downtown lampposts, each with a QR-code toe tag. You can scan up to 25 unique skeletons a week. A $100 downtown gift card goes out each Saturday before Halloween, and a $250 grand prize is drawn October 31.
2. Town Hall Arts Center's "Almost Heaven: Songs of John Denver." Remaining performances are October 15–18 and October 22–24, closing out a run that began September 18.
3. Haunts of Littleton walking tours, October 16, 17, 23 and 24, 7–9:30 p.m. The tours wind through downtown streets and alleys. The listing gives the RTD Littleton/Downtown Station at 5777 S. Prince St. as the location.
4. Goblin Giveout, October 25, noon–4 p.m. Participating downtown shops and restaurants hand out candy.
5. David Ocelotl Garcia at the Littleton Museum. The opening reception for "Energy & Movement of Public Art" is November 5, 5:30–7 p.m. An artist talk follows November 19, with doors at 5:30 p.m. and the talk at 6. Both take place at 6028 S. Gallup St.
6. "Big: The Musical" at Town Hall Arts Center, November 20–December 27. The schedule also lists a November 19 performance.
7. Candlelight Walk, November 27, on the new route described above.
8. Small Business Saturday, November 28, all day downtown.

Sparkle and Stroll runs November 27 through December 24. Shoppers collect stamps on a Sparkle Card each time they shop or dine downtown. They can upload a photo of the card or drop it off at Town Hall Arts Center for gift-card drawings, and a $250 grand prize is announced in January.

The window for weighing in is this winter

Preliminary designs go to city council in January, and the city wants final approval early in 2027. Two surveys are open on Let's Talk Littleton, one for Project Main Street and one for Project PARKing. The city says it's still weighing design options around safety, accessibility, parking, cost, trees, pedestrian comfort, business activity and event flexibility.

A separate effort, Blueprint Boulevard, is collecting input on Littleton Boulevard and the nearby neighborhoods. It has an open house Monday, October 12, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at the EPIC Campus, 190 E. Littleton Boulevard.

The city has also said it's studying how to phase construction so downtown businesses stay reachable during the 2028–2029 work.

If you own near Main Street and want to talk through how these plans fit your own timing, Shelley Welliver is glad to walk through it with you. Schedule a free consultation.