DENVER | Main Development Thread #6

[Denver]

Originally Posted by balugajames

You are exactly the right. Denver didn't play the lottery, we ran a successful business. Very different approaches.

We are about to finish our last big idea with no big ideas that I know of on the drawing board aside from the horrible wasteful spending of I-70 widening (Tear it down!).

Its odd we are investing so much in this corridor, which should never have been built, when a train running parallel too it is about to open.. Just imagine what those 2 billion (likely going to be 4 billion) could do across the state.

Uhhhh.....question. You have an issue with widening I-70 and building a train. Yet you also praised Metro Denver for its past projects that that helped transform the city. One of those project was T-Rex which included...wait for it....a widening of I-25 and a train! the East Line will be good for connecting DIA with Union Station and Downtown Denver. However, IMO, it will not be good for much else unless you happen to live in Stapleton.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Denver

Uhhhh.....question. You have an issue with widening I-70 and building a train. Yet you also praised Metro Denver for its past projects that that helped transform the city. One of those project was T-Rex which included...wait for it....a widening of I-25 and a train! the East Line will be good for connecting DIA with Union Station and Downtown Denver. However, IMO, it will not be good for much else unless you happen to live in Stapleton.

Yeah, the only issue I have with balugajames' comment.

It's all too easy to assume that all of the things that we need or enjoy somehow magically show up on store shelves or at our workplace etc. The interstate system (and other roadways) is as critical for moving goods and services as it is for moving people.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways is in place and celebrating its 40th anniversary, must surely be the best investment a nation ever made.

It is not an exaggeration, but a simple statement of fact, that the interstate highway system is an engine that has driven 40 years of unprecedented prosperity and positioned the United States to remain the world's pre-eminent power into the 21st century.

Source: The Public Purpose blog

[bcp]

Originally Posted by EngiNerd

RDS70 has a nice update for us this morning:




http://www.denver-cityscape.com/

love it - denver needs more white buildings, enough with the earthy tan color!!! (no sarcasm)

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

There was an article in the Colorado Springs Paper wondering why Colorado Springs had not shared in the boom of the northern Front Range Cities and suggesting the City, which was notorious for having its voters reject even the most modest proposals for government investment, might be suffering the consequences of its lack of foresight.

Do you happen to have a link to this? Just curious. I just took a spin through the Gazette website, but couldn't find it. (Managed to get annoyed by about 17 other things I did find there, though. Not surprising.)

[corey]

The new apartment building at Speer and Bannock will be quite awesome if it is done correctly. The site has a lot going for it. It over looks Cherry Creek and Sunken Gardens Park and will have a fantastic mountain view. The shape of the site and its high visibility from west bound Speer Blvd. lends itself to a striking design. I love the curve Bannock makes as it meets Speer and how the building across the street follows the curve. I like the massing of the project shown in the renderings, but I think they could improve on the appearance of the curved portion of the building that will stand out from west bound Speer to make it more stunning. It still looks pretty damn nice though. I like the light coloring.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by balugajames

Its odd we are investing so much in this corridor, which should never have been built, when a train running parallel too it is about to open.. Just imagine what those 2 billion (likely going to be 4 billion) could do across the state.

Likely to be $4 billion based on what exactly? I'd be surprised if it ends up more than $1 billion. (And it can't be much more - that's all the funds that are being made available - the rest will have to made up with private equity.)

Removing the highway isn't an option - if that happened, traffic studies show something like 50,000 vehicles per day on 46th Ave. To say nothing of what it does to MLK and other northeast Denver roads. It's be a big dang mess for the neighborhoods. Unless you'd like to vaporize all of the businesses and industry (and jobs) up there too? I recognize that factory and warehousing jobs aren't as sexy as a white collar office jobs, but the folks who actually work there might disagree.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Likely to be $4 billion based on what exactly? I'd be surprised if it ends up more than $1 billion. (And it can't be much more - that's all the funds that are being made available - the rest will have to made up with private equity.)

Removing the highway isn't an option - if that happened, traffic studies show something like 50,000 vehicles per day on 46th Ave. To say nothing of what it does to MLK and other northeast Denver roads. It's be a big dang mess for the neighborhoods. Unless you'd like to vaporize all of the businesses and industry (and jobs) up there too? I recognize that factory and warehousing jobs aren't as sexy as a white collar office jobs, but the folks who actually work there might disagree.

The people who work in those industrial parks might also have an issue with those who presume that the train allows them to commute to their jobs (it doesn't) and that all of the transportation and service trucks that operate out of these areas will magically disappear once the A-Line becomes operational.

[BG918]

Originally Posted by corey

The new apartment building at Speer and Bannock will be quite awesome if it is done correctly. The site has a lot going for it. It over looks Cherry Creek and Sunken Gardens Park and will have a fantastic mountain view. The shape of the site and its high visibility from west bound Speer Blvd. lends itself to a striking design. I love the curve Bannock makes as it meets Speer and how the building across the street follows the curve. I like the massing of the project shown in the renderings, but I like that could improve on the appearance of the curved portion of the building that will stand out from west bound Speer to make it more stunning. It still looks pretty damn nice though. I like the light coloring.

That's my thought too, bring the glass around at the curve along Bannock and this is a winner. Great to see retail space along Bannock and especially at the corner (one of the main N-S arteries through GT).

[bcp]

why? there is nothing to really call a view in that direction - it's mountains or city...gotta put the stairwell somewhere!

[lumos]

I was walking past Union Tower West when I noticed that construction fencing is up for the affordable housing at 1975 18th st. Not only that but there are a considerable number of yellow earth moving machines (well it moved for me anyway) busy clearing the site.

[Robert.hampton]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Looks like this project will take up approximately 1/3 of the parking lot. Denver Housing Authority will continue to own the remaining 2/3. Given a 40,000 sq ft project, it will probably end up being 3-4 stories depending how the vehicle parking is configured (underground vs. structured).

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/r...lth-foundation-relocating-hq-to-new.html

Lookes like a 3 story project. Anyone know how to find the plans submitted to the city?

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

There was an article in the Colorado Springs Paper wondering why Colorado Springs had not shared in the boom of the northern Front Range Cities and suggesting the City, which was notorious for having its voters reject even the most modest proposals for government investment, might be suffering the consequences of its lack of foresight.

I'd like to see that too. I hadn't thought about it before, but I could totally see that being true. What boom-fueling millennial would want to move to Colorado Springs? Farm kids from La Junta, maybe, but there aren't enough of those to keep a city growing (as Pueblo well knows).

[TakeFive]

"Denver's beautiful Union Station mixes old and new"
July 30, 2015 by David Koch - Greater Greater Washington

When Denver needed a new transit hub, city leaders naturally looked at the city's aging Union Station. Now after a massive expansion, Union Station is a monument to multimodalism, and a beautiful architectural mix of ornate old and shimmering new.

The new Denver Union Station combines five transit modes with expansive new and refurbished public spaces, and a brand new transit-oriented neighborhood.

Photos credit: Ryan Dravitz via Greater Greater Washington

Fair to say that RyanD is now well-known in our nation's capitol (and beyond).

[Brainpathology]

Originally Posted by EngiNerd

RDS70 has a nice update for us this morning:




http://www.denver-cityscape.com/

Holy crap that building is ugly. It's only rivaled in ugliness by the new Alexan Arapaho Square. Real cities like Portland, Dallas, Minneapolis, uhm.. lets see Fresno? would never allow this kind of abomination to be foisted on the innocent unsuspecting eyes of their valiant hard working citizens and the people of Denver should literally grab torches and pitchforks and protest until these are canceled. Let's also hope someone saves the historic warehouse that the Alexan is going to callously destroy.

[rds70]

Some information about the new Denver Health building at 6th and Broadway:

- 9 stories, 138 feet tall
- 300,000 square feet, with 190,000 square feet of office
- 6,000 square feet of ground floor retail
- 3 floors of structured parking, plus one floor below grade
- Denver Health's patented "curve" on the Broadway elevation

Here are a couple of crappy elevations from the planning submittal and a color rendering showing the lower floors of the Broadway elevation:

[Denver]

For everyone bitching about the design of the Alexan and Speer proposals, here is my rant. It takes two seconds to realize that the rendering is a conceptual proposal that appears intended to show massing more so than design. Just look at what EnV (aka Joule) looked like at this point in the design process. Now as anyone who has driven down Speer would know, Env looks a lot better in person than it does in the early renderings. This is not to say that the final design new building (what are we calling it?) will satisfy everyone but rather to point out that it is way to early for anyone to start bitching about the design.

As far as the Alexan proposal goes, all I am going to say is that it is a hell of a lot better than what is there now and that the design could have turned out much much much worse that what Kephart is proposing. I really do not understand how people on DI are complaining about the design as much as they are. I personally think it looks pretty great.

On a side note, I love the progression of many of the DI commenters and people on this thread. First we complain that not enough buildings are being built in Denver. Then when buildings are built we complain that all we are getting are boxy stick builds. Then when developers pony up the cash for a larger building we complain about the design, color, and lack of retail. Isn't there a point where we can just be happy that our urban fabric is being rebuilt without needless complaining about the designs of many of the buildings currently being built? If the design truly is horrible (Aloft) then yes, lets bitch and moan. But come on....this is getting old fast.

Rant over. Thank you for your time.

[bcp]

Awesome post...just wait until some people want to start protecting parking lots...

[balugajames]

Originally Posted by Denver

For everyone bitching about the design of the Alexan and Speer proposals, here is my rant. It takes two seconds to realize that the rendering is a conceptual proposal that appears intended to show massing more so than design. Just look at what EnV (aka Joule) looked like at this point in the design process. Now as anyone who has driven down Speer would know, Env looks a lot better in person than it does in the early renderings. This is not to say that the final design new building (what are we calling it?) will satisfy everyone but rather to point out that it is way to early for anyone to start bitching about the design.

As far as the Alexan proposal goes, all I am going to say is that it is a hell of a lot better than what is there now and that the design could have turned out much much much worse that what Kephart is proposing. I really do not understand how people on DI are complaining about the design as much as they are. I personally think it looks pretty great.

On a side note, I love the progression of many of the DI commenters and people on this thread. First we complain that not enough buildings are being built in Denver. Then when buildings are built we complain that all we are getting are boxy stick builds. Then when developers pony up the cash for a larger building we complain about the design, color, and lack of retail. Isn't there a point where we can just be happy that our urban fabric is being rebuilt without needless complaining about the designs of many of the buildings currently being built? If the design truly is horrible (Aloft) then yes, lets bitch and moan. But come on....this is getting old fast.

Rant over. Thank you for your time.

Disliking, pig like massing on buildings is understandable. I am not sure why you are complaining at us for having opinions. Its not like we have veto power on these projects ;0 and even in my post I commented on still being glad to see a project go live in the area. My dream is the developer sees this and they have a moment of enlightenment when they realize they are building something people have to live in and look at for a long time and its worth a little on the margins! (I know I am dreaming)

We 'build', go figure, our environments and as we have seen in the past its not hard to mess it up. I am not sure massing like we are seeing is a good thing. Maybe we have entered in the age of manufactured high rises and they just happen to resemble commie blocks, or porky pigs (Again, I am not talking about density, purely massing, and really just above the 5th floor for any 9 story or higher building.)

Its not about the litpstick, its the fact its a pig. Giraffes are so much cooler!! What would you rather be surrounded by: Pigs or Giraffes? Give me some height variance across the block. Prices are high enough to warrant it. If the Alexan AS was a half block development I would have no issues..

I am sorry my opinion irks you. I am all for development, but I think with any evolutionary system (city development for example), debate and discussion is a good thing.. Don't forget that, like our society has.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Denver

For everyone bitching about the design of the Alexan and Speer proposals, here is my rant. It takes two seconds to realize that the rendering is a conceptual proposal that appears intended to show massing more so than design. Just look at what EnV (aka Joule) looked like at this point in the design process. Now as anyone who has driven down Speer would know, Env looks a lot better in person than it does in the early renderings. This is not to say that the final design new building (what are we calling it?) will satisfy everyone but rather to point out that it is way to early for anyone to start bitching about the design.

As far as the Alexan proposal goes, all I am going to say is that it is a hell of a lot better than what is there now and that the design could have turned out much much much worse that what Kephart is proposing. I really do not understand how people on DI are complaining about the design as much as they are. I personally think it looks pretty great.

On a side note, I love the progression of many of the DI commenters and people on this thread. First we complain that not enough buildings are being built in Denver. Then when buildings are built we complain that all we are getting are boxy stick builds. Then when developers pony up the cash for a larger building we complain about the design, color, and lack of retail. Isn't there a point where we can just be happy that our urban fabric is being rebuilt without needless complaining about the designs of many of the buildings currently being built? If the design truly is horrible (Aloft) then yes, lets bitch and moan. But come on....this is getting old fast.

Rant over. Thank you for your time.

No, there is not a point where we can just be happy. Because no, "it could have been much much worse" is not the standard many of us want Denver holding itself to. That's pathetic. There is always room for improvement, and we only get that through dialogue. If you want to be content with childish cheerleading, then by all means, enjoy yourself. But do not discourage people who want something better. The Arapahoe Square design standards process that PLANSIT posted yesterday is a great example. Do you think that effort would be happening if we embraced an attitude of "finally, somebody is building in AS" and left it at that? Without the concern that many of us have expressed about the form of buildings we're getting? Of course not. We complain so that things can be incrementally made better, exactly like is happening right there. That is the difference between a meaningful rant, and the rant of a disengaged citizen who is content to just pay homage to the process.

Ra ra ree, yay Denver, we are the best! Happy? Now let's get better.

EDIT: Agree with baluga's comment as well, except for the part about it that feels resigned. We can affect this, and we do affect this, and it is most definitely fixable, any look at peer cities across the country tells us that. It's a legitimate concern that, if we move past the lowest level of being content with anything in Denver, can be addressed.

[EngiNerd]

Technically Denver, so posting here. Another DTC apartment building. Located on Ulster just north of Belleview (north of the nearly completed Helios apartments). Taking over what is currently (4) 1 story office buildings, so quite an upgrade. This area of the DTC is quickly becoming populated with multi-family residential.



http://evgre.com/properties-in-development?id=1440&type=MULTI&state=CO&city=Denver