An effort to maintain and improve a bustling corridor in the city of Denver is in the works by the business owners who occupy it. 

Local business owners have made it their goal to create a designation for South Broadway area that would recognize it as a general improvement district in the city.

The lunch rush at MAKFam just off South Broadway on 1st Avenue in Denver is busy as usual. That's just how co-owner Doris Yuen likes it. 

"I feel like South Broadway brings in a different crowd from the Ballpark and the RiNo crowd," Yuen told CBS Colorado. 

Yuen and her husband have had the place for a couple years after a successful stint of food pop-ups, and she's come to love her South Broadway community. 

"I love the crowd in this neighborhood," Yuen said. "I love our neighbors here. They're so supportive of us and our concept here."

Just up the road, Luke Johnson feels the same way. The longtime owner of Luke & Company Pet Supply shop and president of the Broadway Merchants Association wants to do something for the area. 

"This is ultimately a way to preserve Broadway," Johnson told CBS Colorado. "It's just means to lift up the people that live and work here."

Making South Broadway a GID would generate a small added property tax within the borders of the neighborhood, and the money would go back into improvements for the area. Johnson referenced that type of tax going toward cleaning up graffiti, replacing broken storefront windows and helping to create a safer and more secure neighborhood for the people living there. 

"It's a way for both residents and business owners and property owners and renters of units to say there are things that are broken in the community, and we wanna fix them," Johnson said. 

Johnson said there has been a regular dialogue in his five years leading the merchants association that a GID could solve a good chunk of the problems business owners have. Since the pandemic, he said that turnover rate for businesses in the South Broadway area was, "somewhere between 15 and 20%". 

A group of residents and business owners have managed to raise $100,000 to bring the possibility of a GID to Denver City Council. If the council approves it, a vote for a GID will go to a public ballot in November. 

"Businesses on Broadway need a little extra boost, and that's what we hope the improvement district will bring," Johnson said.

The goal is not to change or gentrify the neighborhood, Johnson explained, but to maintain it for the businesses and the community members who have been there years. 

"We don't really feel we get the love we need from the city, and this is one way we can do that," Johnson said.