DENVER | Main Development Thread #6

[lumos]

Another two stalled projects are the Hilton Garden Inn that will restore the Hose Building #1 and the plaza in front of REI. The latter has been stopped for 18 months after the floods but has been left an eyesore with the paths and ramp pulled out. On any sunny day this attracts vast numbers of people to enjoy the confluence. They are now doing it in what might be mistaken for Aleppo.

The Hose Building keeps showing signs of starting, a JCB on Tuesday, a man clearing the weeds yesterday, general clearing out of junk, but nothing more. Does anyone know what is holding up these projects.

[transistor]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Do you have a better idea? There's not a lot of empty land closer than that, at least not enough to build single-family units affordably. We have outlawed condos. Are we all supposed to live in shitty apartments and rent for the rest of our lives? Because unless you are giving up on the aspiration of homeownership, we have no choice but to sprawl. I personally think Aurora has a much brighter future than we let on. Eventually we will run out of new millennials to pack into overpriced apartments, demographics don't lie. And people will not want to rent forever. Denver will become impossible for them.

They could raise property taxes to account for the fact that single family homes do not generate enough tax revenue to be worth it. Use this money to provide decent services and to make the city an actual city instead of a suburb with zero things to do.

[jhwk]

Originally Posted by lumos

Another two stalled projects are the Hilton Garden Inn that will restore the Hose Building #1 and the plaza in front of REI. The latter has been stopped for 18 months after the floods but has been left an eyesore with the paths and ramp pulled out. On any sunny day this attracts vast numbers of people to enjoy the confluence. They are now doing it in what might be mistaken for Aleppo.

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/01/10/4-2...ried-as-eyesore-will-sit-dormant-longer/

The contractor on the Confluence Park project found a lot of coal tar in the river banks. It sounds like they are waiting for the water level to drop in the fall, but it also sounds like the environmental problems blew the budget and the city is scrambling to find extra money.

[COtoOC]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Do you have a better idea? There's not a lot of empty land closer than that, at least not enough to build single-family units affordably. We have outlawed condos. Are we all supposed to live in shitty apartments and rent for the rest of our lives? Because unless you are giving up on the aspiration of homeownership, we have no choice but to sprawl. I personally think Aurora has a much brighter future than we let on. Eventually we will run out of new millennials to pack into overpriced apartments, demographics don't lie. And people will not want to rent forever. Denver will become impossible for them.

I think what needs to happen is to clean up the "ugly triangle" area between Anschutz/Stapleton/Lowry. And the only way to do that is to start with bulldozing all the crack motels. This area will never "gentrify" when you have the main street through it filled with hookers/drugs/crime. This stretch of Colfax has become the (or one of the) dumping ground for homeless and drug-addicted people. I drive through here daily (going from Stapleton to Lowry) and see what goes on. I see the police tape, the hookers, the drug deals, the fights, etc.

The problem, of course, is what to do with all these people. I don't have that answer.

Also, much of the housing stock in this area is just crap. I do see a re-hab here or there. I suppose if Colfax was rid of the derelicts, and possibly replaced the pawn shops and crap stores in the old downtown strip with desirable and trendy stores/restaurants/bars, the surrounding neighborhoods would improve with flips/rehabs/scrape-offs.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by transistor

They could raise property taxes to account for the fact that single family homes do not generate enough tax revenue to be worth it. Use this money to provide decent services and to make the city an actual city instead of a suburb with zero things to do.

They do that already. Through special purpose taxing districts. All of those new projects have 50+ mills more in property taxes than the rest of the city to help pay for their own infrastructure. If they're not paying enough for police and more general, not project-specific services - well, that's just the city, county, school district, what have you, just not taxing enough. But that's up to the voters. You can't just raise taxes without a vote.

[lumos]

Originally Posted by jhwk

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/01/10/4-2...ried-as-eyesore-will-sit-dormant-longer/

The contractor on the Confluence Park project found a lot of coal tar in the river banks. It sounds like they are waiting for the water level to drop in the fall, but it also sounds like the environmental problems blew the budget and the city is scrambling to find extra money.

Thanks for the link, I had missed that in the DP. At least it seems that it will reach a conclusion, the city needs to exploit its great natural assets.

[transistor]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

They do that already. Through special purpose taxing districts. All of those new projects have 50+ mills more in property taxes than the rest of the city to help pay for their own infrastructure. If they're not paying enough for police and more general, not project-specific services - well, that's just the city, county, school district, what have you, just not taxing enough. But that's up to the voters. You can't just raise taxes without a vote.

It still doesn't adress the issue that single family homes will continue to take more tax dollars than they bring in. While the initial infrastructure may be built using special purpose tax districts, these homes will still end up draining the budget in the long term.

That's the real issue then, while everybody always clamors about Aurora becoming a great city, the tax base is content with living in a mediocre one.

Here is a good slogan for the rebranding of Aurora. "Aurora, it might be safer here."

[The Dirt]

Instead of building 50,000 new homes out in the middle of nowhere, Aurora could build more compact neighborhoods with plenty of town homes and a decent street grid. A smaller development footprint alone would help alleviate some of the cost of new infrastructure. I also don't buy the whole "if we don't annex and build" builders will just come and develop in the county. It hasn't happened already, so why would they expect it to?

As far as NW Aurora around CU, there really needs to be a master development plan that ties into and extends already-affluent neighborhoods like Lowry and Stapleton. Aurora won't be able to get away with plopping down 800K homes in the middle of the ghetto like Denver has done. Nobody wants to admit that they live in Aurora. People will move to the worst parts of Denver just so that they could say they live in Denver. Of course, it also helps that the worst parts of Denver aren't really that bad and have easy access to entertainment and other amenities. E. Colfax in Aurora is too far gone at the moment. It's at least 25 years out from a renaissance unless they plan on investing millions of dollars and considering a DURA-style tear down of the strip malls, motels, and low quality housing.

[comoneymaker]

Originally Posted by DUPio

I'm not nearly as in-the-know as many of you guys so maybe you can shed some light on why Aurora is the way it is. I don't understand why the area around Anschutz hasn't even started gentrification, I would think there would be plenty of people wanting to live closer to the campus to shorten the commute. I also don't understand how Aurora has no centrality to it. It seems almost all Colorado towns have a main street of sorts while Aurora really has no "center". Anschutz is providing a hell of an opportunity for Aurora, but it appears it is being wasted.

It's cause you go a block off campus and you are in a area where you will get robbed on a weakly basis.

[comoneymaker]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

BLAGGHHHH! The shittiest and yet most prolific product in the Denver market.

Its not working.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by transistor

It still doesn't adress the issue that single family homes will continue to take more tax dollars than they bring in. While the initial infrastructure may be built using special purpose tax districts, these homes will still end up draining the budget in the long term.

That is true of residential development everywhere, in every city. Unless you want the strategy of only allowing childless wealthy people, and you still need their retail spending to break even. But every city can't do that. If you think you're criticizing sprawl, you're not. What you're criticizing is our taxing structure, which intentionally relies heavily on taxing commercial development as a subsidy to residential development (of all shapes and sizes). I don't disagree that creates some perverse incentives, but that's an entirely different discussion.

I'm not sure you can become a great city. If we were just looking at fifty Stapletons, NOBODY would be saying Denver was great. The stuff that makes Denver great was built and baked in long before any of us was born. And is extremely difficult to replicate today. There are some cities doing a decent enough job of making new development trend toward the great, without old bones to support it. But very, very few. Denver isn't doing new in a great way, that's for sure. 2020 Lawrence and the sea of EIFS ocean liners? So very Vladivostok. 35 mph light rail speed limits? What exactly makes us great that wasn't built by God or cowboys?

[transistor]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

That is true of residential development everywhere, in every city. Unless you want the strategy of only allowing childless wealthy people, and you still need their retail spending to break even. But every city can't do that. If you think you're criticizing sprawl, you're not. What you're criticizing is our taxing structure, which intentionally relies heavily on taxing commercial development as a subsidy to residential development (of all shapes and sizes). I don't disagree that creates some perverse incentives, but that's an entirely different discussion.

What I was criticizing is that Aurora easily finds investors to build endless fields of single family homes, but has been completely unable to find an investor who will develop any sort of vertical office space. My main criticism is then that it's entire tax structure is unsustainable, due to something on their part I don't claim to understand, even less so than other cities, although Anschutz does help plug the leak.

I don't expect Aurora to become Capitol Hill or anything like that, but they could at least try to get a 10+ built outside of Anschutz. Also I don't know how accurate this is, but I see more and more people with kids everytime I am downtown, so maybe that's just stereotypical of you. It's more likely wealthy and mostly childless individuals living there now.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by rds70

Orchard Station TOD planned for Greenwood Village:

Developer: Alberta Development Partners
Site: 24 acres

Office: 1.2 million square feet
Residential: 1.7 million square feet
Retail: 300,000 square feet
Hotel: 177 rooms
Open Space: 7.5 acres

Height: up to 300 feet




www.orchardstationdevelopment.com

I really have no words. Not that I had my hopes up and expected anything different, but what is it with Denver architecture in our continual push of this clumsy, boxy garbage? This sloppy architecture - boxes with protruding balconies and overhanging roofs - has overwhelmed our metro area to the point one would think it's codified as a design standard. Enough of this already!

It's a theme that can be seen all over our metro. One Bellevue Station looks like it was designed in 1982, and the new tower at Colorado Center is so chunky and visually oppressing that it gives me indigestion, not to mention it looks to pre-date the other two towers by at least 20 years (anyone remember the original Colorado Center Tower 3 proposal, with the curving curtain-glass wall fronting I-25 and the pyramid top?)

I'm really not sure how the Re/Max building was ever constructed in this town. Either someone was thinking outside the box (literally), or we just got lucky.

I still maintain there is only one architect (who went to CU Boulder's ENVD program) that is working this town. No variation in architectural styles whatsoever, just more of the same boxes, balconies, and flat rooflines.

[Mulligan]

Originally Posted by Matt

I really have no words. Not that I had my hopes up and expected anything different, but what is it with Denver architecture in our continual push of this clumsy, boxy garbage? This sloppy architecture - boxes with protruding balconies and overhanging roofs - has overwhelmed our metro area to the point one would think it's codified as a design standard. Enough of this already!

It's a theme that can be seen all over our metro. One Bellevue Station looks like it was designed in 1982, and the new tower at Colorado Center is so chunky and visually oppressing that it gives me indigestion, not to mention it looks to pre-date the other two towers by at least 20 years (anyone remember the original Colorado Center Tower 3 proposal, with the curving curtain-glass wall fronting I-25 and the pyramid top?)

I'm really not sure how the Re/Max building was ever constructed in this town. Either someone was thinking outside the box (literally), or we just got lucky.

I still maintain there is only one architect (who went to CU Boulder's ENVD program) that is working this town. No variation in architectural styles whatsoever, just more of the same boxes, balconies, and flat rooflines.

I don't see too much terribly wrong with it. There's very, very little surface parking. Looks fairly walkable. Immediately adjacent to light rail. Win, win, win.

Sure...the buildings might be "boring" to some - but I can also think of others much more boring. Frankly, I like them. Are we to expect groundbreaking architecture every single time a building is built? Should we just piss and moan and block everything and insist nothing is built unless we're dotting the skylines with Gherkin and 1WTC-esque buildings?

This is much-needed density in a very suburban, predominantly office environment immediately next to a light rail station. I approve.

[bunt_q]

Matt doesn't want groundbreaking architecture, he knows Denver isn't good enough for that. He just wants glass. And no stone. He has a visceral negative reaction to anything that looks like it might have come from a mountain. Melted beach sand is acceptable.

[Mulligan]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Matt doesn't want groundbreaking architecture, he knows Denver isn't good enough for that. He just wants glass. And no stone. He has a visceral negative reaction to anything that looks like it might have come from a mountain. Melted beach sand is acceptable.

Maybe the developer can add some melted beach sand curtain walls.

[jhwk]

Originally Posted by Matt

I really have no words. Not that I had my hopes up and expected anything different, but what is it with Denver architecture in our continual push of this clumsy, boxy garbage? This sloppy architecture - boxes with protruding balconies and overhanging roofs - has overwhelmed our metro area to the point one would think it's codified as a design standard. Enough of this already!

It's a theme that can be seen all over our metro. One Bellevue Station looks like it was designed in 1982, and the new tower at Colorado Center is so chunky and visually oppressing that it gives me indigestion, not to mention it looks to pre-date the other two towers by at least 20 years (anyone remember the original Colorado Center Tower 3 proposal, with the curving curtain-glass wall fronting I-25 and the pyramid top?)

I'm really not sure how the Re/Max building was ever constructed in this town. Either someone was thinking outside the box (literally), or we just got lucky.

I still maintain there is only one architect (who went to CU Boulder's ENVD program) that is working this town. No variation in architectural styles whatsoever, just more of the same boxes, balconies, and flat rooflines.

I have a multitude of problems with modern architecture and I am not a huge fan of this development either because I don't think it features a coherent design philosophy, but I simply don't understand the "boxy building" criticism of architecture.

Buildings have been boxes for thousands of years because it's the most effective shape for a building, especially since lots in Denver are rectangular. Take a look at the AIA list of America's Favorite Architecture and see how many buildings on it are non-rectangular in plan.

Just because parametric design is flashy and new doesn't mean we need it in Denver. What we need are boxes with better design and better materials.

[EngiNerd]

So when a development like this goes in, and displaces the RTD lot (albeit only a small one in this case), does the developer have to provide a replacement of that parking in their building/site somewhere?

There is also a shuttle/bus drop off point right in front of the station right now, do they have to maintain that? Because in the rendering it looks like there is no vehicle access to the station, which is a better situation, but I am just wondering the ramifications.

[enjo13]

Ken just did a big update on the Market St. station project.

http://denverinfill.com/blog/2016/07/lower-downtown-market-station-update-2.html

It looks fantastic to my eye.

[mr1138]

Originally Posted by EngiNerd

So when a development like this goes in, and displaces the RTD lot (albeit only a small one in this case), does the developer have to provide a replacement of that parking in their building/site somewhere?

There is also a shuttle/bus drop off point right in front of the station right now, do they have to maintain that? Because in the rendering it looks like there is no vehicle access to the station, which is a better situation, but I am just wondering the ramifications.

I've always assumed this was the case, but I'd like to hear from somebody with authority if it really is true. Park-n-rides seem to me to be most useful for generating some Day One commuter ridership (and in doing so, make a transit project feasible prior to the construction of any real density). But their real utility is in providing vacant land adjacent to train stations for future development. It seems like the sale of the land should more than cover the replacement of parking spaces, and having all that occupied square footage near the train station will generate better ridership than a commuter lot anyway. Hopefully RTD sees it the same way.