The 16th Street Mall is a pedestrian and transit mall in Denver, Colorado. The mall, 1.25 miles (2 kilometers) long, runs along 16th Street in downtown Denver, from Wewatta Street (at Union Station) to the intersection of 16th Avenue and Broadway (at Civic Center Station). The intricate granite stone sidewalks and streets were designed by architect I.M Pei to resemble the scale pattern of the western diamondback rattlesnake. It is home to over 300 stores, 50 restaurants, and the Denver Pavilions shopping mall. History Before the mall was built, downtown Denver experienced rates of bus congestion, especially on 16th and 17th streets, where more than 600 bus trips per day operated in 1970s, creating both air pollution and traffic congestion. The design of the area also discouraged pedestrian activity. The solution proposed by the downtown Denver business community and the Regional Transportation District (RTD) was to build two bus transfer stations at either end of 16th Street and connect the two with a pedestrian mall that would include a free transit shuttle bus service. The final design was drawn up by noted architecture firm I. M. Pei & Partners, in collaboration with the urban design and landscape architecture firm, OLIN. Construction was funded by a $75 million grant from Federal Interstate Highway Transfer Funds and the Federal Urban Mass Transit Administration, with RTD providing a local match. It took crews two years to install trees, lights, and granite pavers along the mall. The mall opened on October 4, 1982, and over 200,000 people attended the opening day ceremonies. The mall initially stretched between Market Street (the site of the Market Street Station) and Broadway (the site of Civic Center Station). Light rail service was added on California and Stout in 1994, creating a third transit hub along the mall. RTD purchased Union Station in 2001 and started the process of redeveloping the historic station along with of land in LoDo, to create a new transit hub that would replace Market Street Station. To enable the project, the 16th Street Mall was extended from Market Street to Wynkoop Street in 2001, and to Union Station in 2002 to coincide with the completion of the new light rail spur to the station. In May 2014, RTD opened a new underground bus concourse at Union Station, and Market Street Station was closed. The land was sold to a developer for $11 million, which