A center designed to celebrate and explore the history of Native Americans could see planning underway sometime next year in Denver depending upon the fate of a significantly large bond in November.
The American Indian Cultural Embassy is one of several dozen individual projects proposed for funding as part of the larger Vibrant Denver bond package.
Altogether, the bond has a dollar value of $950 million with those projects undergoing review by various committee earlier this year before being officially listed for the ballot.
The proposed embassy, which Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has said will be a “first, a long overdue resource, for Denver,” will receive some $20 million in funding.
In a statement issued earlier this summer, Stacie Gilmore, a member of the Denver City Council, said the vision for the embassy, “came directly from the community in Denver.”
Continued Gilmore: “This is a first step on a path of truth, education, and reconciliation in an authentic way.”
Supporters of the project have noted that it will serve as a kind of homecoming for Native Americans who were pushed out of the region in the 1860s. In so doing, Native Americans will re-establish ties to a part of the state where they once resided.
“It’s coming back to their homeland to begin a process of having a voice, developing a relationship with the governing entities, from a nation to nation, government to government relationship, and having those kinds of conversations that will benefit everybody,” Rick Williams, president of the group People of the Sacred Land, recently remarked to the Denver Gazette.
As planned, the embassy will be built near the intersection of 56th Avenue and Pena Boulevard, on the northeast side of the city.
The Vibrant Denver bond will be presented to voters as a series of individual proposals that will fund the building of several new recreation centers, the modernization of the Denver Animal Shelter, a public safety staff center, and upgrades to aging city bridges.
October 20, 2025
By Garry Boulard
Poster image of Vibrant Denver Bond
