Nearly two years after crews tore up Fourth Street to replace century-old pipes beneath downtown Loveland, the work is done, and it finished right as holiday shoppers start filling the sidewalks. The city says its $24.5 million HIP Streets project, short for Heart Improvement Plan, wrapped construction on five historic blocks between North Washington and Garfield avenues just ahead of the season's shopping and celebrations.
According to BizWest, the City of Loveland and the Downtown Development Authority partnered to begin construction in February 2025, and the project followed more than 20 years of planning and collaboration before a shovel ever hit the pavement. As North Forty News reports, the roughly two years of construction replaced aging utility systems, including cast-iron water pipes described as more than a century old, along with deteriorating clay stormwater connections underneath the corridor.
That timeline tracks with earlier reporting on the ground. A city utility update from June 2025 found newer, serviceable pipe sections laid alongside older cast-iron lines, with some segments estimated at 75 to 100 years old, a somewhat different age range than the more than a century figure cited elsewhere, though it is not established whether both descriptions refer to the same stretch of pipe.
What Actually Changed on the Street
Above ground, the rebuilt corridor now includes ADA-accessible curbs and ramps, wider sidewalks laid with decorative brick pavers, new trees and landscaping, and pedestrian-friendly lighting, per North Forty News. The improvements also added upgraded stormwater drainage, underground power infrastructure, new fire hydrants and fire lines, and boulder seating areas scattered along the blocks.
Shelley Aschenbrenner, a civil project engineer with the City of Loveland Public Works Department, said the project reflects what a community can achieve through a shared vision, according to North Forty News. The redesign is meant to create more space for pedestrians and downtown events, and BizWest reports that it maintains the same number of parking spaces throughout downtown overall, even as city crews reconfigured spots along the way.
That parking picture gets more complicated at street level. A separate account from Catherine Montgomery describes 31 spaces lost along the corridor itself and 33 added or restriped nearby, a corridor-level count rather than the downtown-wide total cited by BizWest, so the two figures describe different geographic scopes rather than contradicting each other outright.
Funding Without General-Fund Dollars
The City of Loveland and the Downtown Development Authority jointly funded the project, with $12 million coming from city utility enterprise funds and the remaining $12.5 million financed by the Downtown Development Authority through Certificates of Participation, North Forty News reports. According to the city, no general-fund dollars went toward the project. Catherine Montgomery's October reporting noted that no final total for the full program had been published at that point, but completion reports put the project cost at $24.5 million.
The pipe work itself was substantial by the numbers. The same report from Catherine Montgomery, citing a May city update, put the underground upgrades at 4,150 feet of new waterline, 3,080 feet of storm pipe, 19 storm manholes and 21 inlets, all meant, per North Forty News, to increase capacity and support downtown Loveland for generations.
Sean Hawkins, executive director of the Loveland Downtown District, said the improvements create more opportunities to shop, dine, connect and experience local businesses, North Forty News reports. City officials are encouraging residents and visitors to rediscover Fourth Street, explore local shops and restaurants, and experience the changes firsthand now that the fencing and detours are gone.
Color-Changing Sculptures Still to Come
The corridor isn't entirely finished, though. Ten large-scale interactive sculptures called Bloom, created by artist Jen Lewin, are planned for installation along Fourth Street, with two sculptures placed in each of the five renovated blocks, according to North Forty News. The pieces feature colorful overhead petals that change colors in response to visitors' movements and participation, and the installation was commissioned through the City of Loveland's Art in Public Places program.
Loveland Public Art says the Bloom installation is expected to be completed in early 2027. North Forty News reports the city plans to host an official ribbon-cutting ceremony once the sculptures are in place, giving downtown Loveland a second milestone to look forward to after this fall's construction wrap-up.
The Fourth Street rebuild isn't the only infrastructure project Loveland has closed out this year. The county's Monroe Avenue bridge replacement, a $350,000 improvement that added bike lanes, sidewalks and a widened, lengthened span, began December 1, 2025, and had also finished work by the time of a July report from the Reporter-Herald. As recently as September, the same outlet had described HIP Streets as still on track for a November finish, with four of its five blocks complete at the time.
