Englewood's South Broadway Pays You Back Until the Cones Come Down

The City of Englewood is paying people to shop on South Broadway, and the offer has only one end date. It runs until the construction crews pack up. The city's Open Rewards program pays up to 10% cash back at small businesses along the construction corridor, compared with the usual 5%, "now through completion of the project." The city expects to finish that project in December 2026.

So the work you're driving around this week, the new bus shelters, rebuilt medians and fresh paint at the crosswalks, is also the countdown on the rebate. Ten months of lane shifts are almost over. The better rate goes away with them.

Ten months of cones, and October's list is mostly finishing work

The South Broadway Complete Streets project began January 12, 2026. Essential Contractors, Inc. holds the construction contract. The work zone runs from Belleview Avenue to Hampden Avenue. Crews started at Belleview and have been working north all year. The total budget for design and construction is about $7.54 million. Federal money covers 88% of it. Englewood's share is $905,000.

The medians came out early on to keep traffic moving while crews rebuilt the 13 bus pads along the corridor, and the plan has always been to rebuild them near the end. The city's October 5 update lists the work planned for October. Much of it is finishing work, though excavation and drainage continue at Oxford:

1. New shelters, benches and trash bins at the Chenango, Tufts, Quincy, Mansfield and Kenyon bus stops
2. Median work and new median cover at Mansfield, Chenango, Quincy and Kenyon
3. More sidewalk and light-pole work along the west side of the street
4. Topsoil for the new planter boxes, plus grading and cleanup
5. New pavement markings around Chenango, Tufts, Mansfield and Kenyon
6. More excavation, drainage, concrete and corner work at Oxford Avenue

The same update says some work was pushed back because of stormwater improvements, and that the order of work can change with weather and site conditions. December is the city's estimate, not a fixed date, and October's list covers one month rather than everything left before the project ends.

Work hours are Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Night and weekend work happens only in special cases. That makes a Saturday on Broadway this fall a fairly quiet visit, and Saturdays are when the corridor's biggest events happen. More on that below.

How the rebate actually pays out

The program runs through the free Open Rewards app from BluDot. The city's EARN page explains the mechanics. Most of them aren't obvious until you've used it once.

At 10%, the $50 cap only applies to purchases over $500, so it won't affect a dinner out or a bag of books. The redemption step is the one that trips people up. You don't spend rewards at the register. You pay normally, then claim the money back through the app within a week. If you're saving up rewards for one bigger purchase, keep the receipt.

Not every business on Broadway qualifies. The program is for locally owned, non-franchise businesses with physical storefronts, earning a meaningful share of revenue from retail, and restaurants and entertainment count. A business with more than one location must keep all of them in Colorado, with five or fewer statewide. Franchises don't qualify. Neither do service businesses such as salons, barbershops, auto shops and dog groomers. The Claim Rewards tab in the app shows which businesses are participating right now.

What changed on Broadway while the street was torn up

Openings kept coming through the year of lane closures. That's the reason the rebate is worth using. Several businesses on South Broadway are new enough that you may not have tried them yet:

Westword described Good Girl as a mix of coffee shop and bookstore, with baked goods, drinks named after books, and meetups for creative groups. The Denver Post reported that The Barn opened in March as a family-oriented American restaurant. Sukiya Ramen and Wapos Cantina both appeared in Westword's roundup of March openings. They're two doors of new food a block apart. On the closing side, Western Sky Bar & Taproom at 4361 S. Broadway was on Westword's September openings and closings roundup.

Before you go, check each business in the app. It tells you whether that spot is participating and whether it earns the corridor rate or the citywide 5%.

November 14 lines up with the rebate

Englewood's downtown calendar has its own end-of-season dates, and they fall inside the rebate window. The Englewood Downtown Development Authority's events page lists these for the rest of the year:

• Saturday, November 7, 1 to 3 p.m. An artist talk for Duets at CitySpark, 901 Englewood Parkway. The show pairs studio artists from Carousel Arts and Studio 108 and stays up through December 31.
• Saturday, November 14. Second Saturday, with pop-ups, music, gallery and studio events, classes and food at participating downtown businesses. Nicole Korbe of EASEL Co Art Space and Hayley Schneider of SeeSaw Gallery lead it.
• Saturday, November 14, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Old School Cool Vintage Market in the parking lot at South Broadway and West Hampden. This is the last date on the market's 2026 schedule.
• December 3 through January 24. The Winter Art Market at EASEL, with work from NKollectiv's 19 artist members plus guest artists.
• Saturday, December 12. The year's last Second Saturday, which is also EASEL's two-year anniversary and holiday party. NKollectiv moved to downtown Englewood from the Santa Fe Art District two years ago.

November 14 puts the most on Broadway in a single day. The vintage market sits at Broadway and Hampden, the north end of the construction zone, and it runs on a Saturday when crews are normally off. Second Saturday programming is running at the same time, and the rebate is still in effect. If the project wraps on schedule in December, the December 12 Second Saturday could be the first big Broadway day after the corridor rate ends. The city has given no specific end date, so the app's Discovery tab is the place to check the rate that weekend.

A detailed map and an updated list of participating Second Saturday businesses are posted on EASEL's Second Saturdays page. The vintage vendors are listed on the Old School Cool site.

What the street looks like after the crews leave

Once construction ends, the new street has a different setup. The city designed the project as a pair of parallel corridors. South Broadway gets the pedestrian and transit improvements: ADA-accessible sidewalks and intersections, better bus stops, lighting, landscaping, and signs pointing to RTD stops and nearby trails. South Sherman Street, one block over, is the planned route for bikes, with on-street bike lanes and traffic calming meant to draw cyclists off Broadway.

According to the city's project page, Sherman work was planned to start at West Chenango Avenue and move north, beginning with striping and signs, and bike lanes in both directions were scheduled for late September and early October. The October 5 update covered Broadway work only, so check the project page for Sherman's current status before planning a ride around it.

The Downtown Development Authority also plans to keep the corridor lit through the winter. Its operating plan calls for light installations from November through February between Hampden and Eastman avenues, plus a display at the Old Hampden and Lafayette gateway. If the timing works out, the lights go up while the last crosswalk paint goes down.

For now, the practical takeaway is simple. The higher cashback rate on Broadway is tied to the construction schedule, and the city expects that schedule to wrap in December. Download the app before November 14, link a card or save your receipts, and use the corridor rate while it lasts.

Johnny Lee follows Englewood's South Broadway closely, from the bus-stop work at Kenyon to who's moving into the storefronts. If you own a home near the corridor and want to know how a finished Broadway might affect its value, get your instant home valuation, and Johnny will walk you through the numbers.