DENVER | Main Development Thread #6

[trubador]

Originally Posted by Denver Dweller

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/r...mA+ElKTwGoSbqOBYu5F/O7W7Amf&t=1443049220

Originally Posted by The Dirt

It's a 3 story apartment building. Lol

Sorry to rehash this old news, but at first I was excited about the development. I work at Anschutz and have really seen the area transformed over the years. Gone are the abandoned rent by the hour hotels and boarded up discount stores and we now see class A office space, and some ugly, but rent by the night hotels. A good street view of the area goes back to 2007 and the change is pretty significant:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7401351,...VCjSmyDND_AxqhkzXYXgew!2e0!7i3328!8i1664

So why am I disappointed by a 3 story apartment that replaces an empty lot? Because it is less than a quarter mile from the 225 (R) line stop and could support something much bigger. There are over 4,000 students at that campus with another 1,000 medical residents. That is a large population of people that would like to live near their work or school. I'm not even including the tens of thousands of professional that work on the campus that will only increase with the completion of the VA hospital. With only one apartment complex on campus and prices starting at $1200 for a 700 sq ft apartment (to live in Aurora), there seems to be a lot of opportunity to build something bigger and hopefully somewhat more affordable and give some students and residents the chance to live near school/work but have easy access to public transportation.

[Denver Dweller]

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/mornin...mA+ElKTwGoSbqOBYu5F/O7W7Amf&t=1444154399

[TakeFive]

Denver Urban Review covers the groundbreaking for the new Colorado Health Foundation building at 1780 Penn. Interesting looking project.

[COtoOC]

Originally Posted by trubador

Sorry to rehash this old news, but at first I was excited about the development. I work at Anschutz and have really seen the area transformed over the years. Gone are the abandoned rent by the hour hotels and boarded up discount stores and we now see class A office space, and some ugly, but rent by the night hotels. A good street view of the area goes back to 2007 and the change is pretty significant:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7401351,...VCjSmyDND_AxqhkzXYXgew!2e0!7i3328!8i1664

So why am I disappointed by a 3 story apartment that replaces an empty lot? Because it is less than a quarter mile from the 225 (R) line stop and could support something much bigger. There are over 4,000 students at that campus with another 1,000 medical residents. That is a large population of people that would like to live near their work or school. I'm not even including the tens of thousands of professional that work on the campus that will only increase with the completion of the VA hospital. With only one apartment complex on campus and prices starting at $1200 for a 700 sq ft apartment (to live in Aurora), there seems to be a lot of opportunity to build something bigger and hopefully somewhat more affordable and give some students and residents the chance to live near school/work but have easy access to public transportation.

Very true. The area has cleaned up a lot, but still a lot of work to go. And anything west of Peoria...

I noticed that 10 or so story hotel that just went up south of Colfax... seems like a very odd location, back so far from Colfax and overlooking a dumpy neighborhood.

[EngiNerd]

Originally Posted by COtoOC

Very true. The area has cleaned up a lot, but still a lot of work to go. And anything west of Peoria...

I noticed that 10 or so story hotel that just went up south of Colfax... seems like a very odd location, back so far from Colfax and overlooking a dumpy neighborhood.

With views of historic Kenny's house.

[TakeFive]

"Landmark approves historic designation"
October 7, 2015 by John Rebchook Denver Real Estate Watch

The Landmark Preservation Commission, following a passionate public hearing on Tuesday afternoon, recommended the so-called “Anderson House” should receive a historic designation.

The Denver City Council will consider the recommendation for the home at 2329 Eliot St. in Jefferson Park next month.

[DownhomeDenver]

Originally Posted by DownhomeDenver

Good info man! Thanks

By the way, there is a development review case for the Rocky Mountain PBS:

A Square
2015D00104
2101 Arapahoe St
D-AS
Mixed-Use
Steve Olive

[DownhomeDenver]

And also....WTH is Alexan 20th Street Station? are they going to take up that empty lot behind Hertz Rent-a-Car????

Alexan 20th Street Station
2015PM485
20th & California
C-MX-12
Muti-Family Residential
Greg Savage
358 unit, 12 story apartments

We already knew about this one below:

Alexan Arapahoe Square
2015PM360
2200 welton
D-AS
Muti-Family Residential
Greg Savage

[trubador]

Originally Posted by COtoOC

Very true. The area has cleaned up a lot, but still a lot of work to go. And anything west of Peoria...

I noticed that 10 or so story hotel that just went up south of Colfax... seems like a very odd location, back so far from Colfax and overlooking a dumpy neighborhood.

yeah it is a bit odd, but their plans are for the entire area to be filled with 3-4 story buildings, so it won't stand out so much. Like always, future plans are a moving target, but here is what they are thinking now. Fitzimmons 200 should be the next building going up, which is on the corner of Colfax an Ursula.

[COtoOC]

Originally Posted by trubador

yeah it is a bit odd, but their plans are for the entire area to be filled with 3-4 story buildings, so it won't stand out so much. Like always, future plans are a moving target, but here is what they are thinking now. Fitzimmons 200 should be the next building going up, which is on the corner of Colfax an Ursula.

Nice graphic

I still don't see the housing surrounding Anschutz ever becoming desirable. I live in Eastbridge and the entire area south of there over to the campus is probably 95% dumpy little houses. Maybe people will start scraping them some day. And a side note... I looked on the sex offenders map out of curiosity and that whole area lights up like a Christmas tree... some of them labeled as violent. I've also heard gunshots in that area from my house multiple times over the years, they come up and rob Stapleton residents left and right (typically due to doors left open), and then you have all the tweakers/pimps/hos along Colfax. I thought I read somewhere years ago that they expected the area between Lowry/Stapleton/Anschutz to "clean up" with nice developments surrounding it, but so far, not really at all.

[seventwenty]

Glendale 180's bond election is dead for the moment.

The city of Glendale on Tuesday night voted to cancel a bond election scheduled for Nov. 3 in order to allow more time to act on lawsuit filed against the city by Summit Hospitality LLC last month.

. . .

That suit alleges that Glendale improperly stacked the election by selling five one-square-foot parcels of land on the Glendale 180 redevelopment site to five property owners who are connected with the city in order to ensure the success of the election.

[bunt_q]

Wow, would sure love to know who the lawyer is who conjured up that cockamamie scheme to sell off five city-owned 1-square foot parcels to qualify electors. If I had to guess, I bet he is young, brilliant, and has great hair. Okay, maybe just great hair.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Wow, would sure love to know who the lawyer is who conjured up that cockamamie scheme to sell off five city-owned 1-square foot parcels to qualify electors. If I had to guess, I bet he is young, brilliant, and has great hair. Okay, maybe just great hair.

Originally Posted by COtoOC

Nice graphic

I still don't see the housing surrounding Anschutz ever becoming desirable. I live in Eastbridge and the entire area south of there over to the campus is probably 95% dumpy little houses. Maybe people will start scraping them some day.
...
I thought I read somewhere years ago that they expected the area between Lowry/Stapleton/Anschutz to "clean up" with nice developments surrounding it, but so far, not really at all.

I have suggested as much; that the area could change. I wouldn't be surprised if some are starting to "land bank" property in the area.

As we can attest to, an area can change pretty fast once it gets rolling. OTOH, an area can just sit there for many years with no change. Many, many years ago it was often referred to as a DMZ (demilitarized zone).

The obvious development will happen first like with trubador's graphic. Some of the brick stock could become nicer affordable housing but there's a whole lot of room for redevelopment. Who knows when or if but the potential is there.

[mr1138]

I'm a bit surprised how much has been said about the height, density, location, general character of the neighborhood, etc.; and yet not one person has pointed out the worst thing by far about this proposal: its site layout.

They basically took the most questionable kind of modern infill building type (the Texas Doughnut) and tacked a traditional suburban strip mall to the side of it. It appears it will come complete with multiple private driveway cuts off of Colfax, and a nice "healthy" setback of parking between the sidewalk and storefronts.

Not that the other complaints raised here aren't valid as well, but I certainly hope I'm not the only one who noticed this crap-a-rific site plan. I really hope this doesn't set a new trend, where developers who lack good urban design instincts can just thoughtlessly tack suburban-style strip retail onto the side of an apartment building and call it "walkable mixed use."

[mojiferous]

Denver's finally getting into the construction-defect fight
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/c...l-construction.html?ana=twt&t=1444335723

[COtoOC]

Originally Posted by mr1138

I'm a bit surprised how much has been said about the height, density, location, general character of the neighborhood, etc.; and yet not one person has pointed out the worst thing by far about this proposal: its site layout.

They basically took the most questionable kind of modern infill building type (the Texas Doughnut) and tacked a traditional suburban strip mall to the side of it. It appears it will come complete with multiple private driveway cuts off of Colfax, and a nice "healthy" setback of parking between the sidewalk and storefronts.

Not that the other complaints raised here aren't valid as well, but I certainly hope I'm not the only one who noticed this crap-a-rific site plan. I really hope this doesn't set a new trend, where developers who lack good urban design instincts can just thoughtlessly tack suburban-style strip retail onto the side of an apartment building and call it "walkable mixed use."

Good point. I didn't notice that horrible parking lot/strip mall. Seems out of character with the other new development along Colfax (hotel, bank, Panera...)

[COtoOC]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

I have suggested as much; that the area could change. I wouldn't be surprised if some are starting to "land bank" property in the area.

As we can attest to, an area can change pretty fast once it gets rolling. OTOH, an area can just sit there for many years with no change. Many, many years ago it was often referred to as a DMZ (demilitarized zone).

The obvious development will happen first like with trubador's graphic. Some of the brick stock could become nicer affordable housing but there's a whole lot of room for redevelopment. Who knows when or if but the potential is there.

If I had the $$$, I could see buying up properties in these areas. But still... as long as the crack motels remain all along Colfax, there is no chance of that cleaning up. On the one hand, I don't know where all the people who live in them would go, but on the other hand, I don't enjoy living 2 miles from the metro area's dumping ground for drug addicts. I suppose ridding Colfax of them one at a time is the only way, but it'll take a long time.

It'll be interesting to see how the Stanley Marketplace works out. To the north, million dollar homes. To the south, the DMZ. If things don't clean up on the south side of this redevelopment, I could see it failing. I'm not going to walk over to a beer garden in the evening if I have to duck bullets.

[Denver Dweller]

http://www.businessden.com/2015/10/09/college-launches-work-on-60m-science-building/

[patco]

Anyone know where the new Hilton Canopy will go? A downtown denver location was announced earlier this week via this press release.

[RyanD]

Originally Posted by patco

Anyone know where the new Hilton Canopy will go? A downtown denver location was announced earlier this week via this press release.

Hilton... Hilton... I've heard of a Hilton going some sorts of places... I have a speculation...

It goes something like:

10100010
or
CLXII
or
The square root of 26244

But what do I know?