DENVER | Main Development Thread #6

[TakeFive]

DBJ:

Colorado adds 5,500 jobs; unemployment falls to 5.3%
The state's payroll job gain in July was close to the 12-month average increase of 5,467.

PBJ:

Arizona's soft job market persists as Phoenix sheds private-sector jobs
The Valley lost 500 private-sector jobs in July, according to new employment figures from the Arizona Department of Administration. The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate ticked up to 7 percent in July...

Fair to say that Phoenix is having even more difficulty competing with Texas etc. Anybody want to hazard a guess what the Valley's biggest job creator was prior to the recession? It was GROWTH. People moving into the Valley created a robust housing market. Retail follows rooftops and warehouses follow retail. Growth means more need for A/C technicians, car salesmen and repair shops etc. etc. It worked so well a Big Bubble grew. Meanwhile a company like Honeywell, long a very large employer started out-sourcing to Mexico and Yugoslavia. Voila. Talk about a place in dire need of economic diversity. There have been some green shoots, just not enough yet to move the needle much.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by bcp

^ yet the article seems to point out that the people being "pushed out" are selling for BIG profits, voluntarily...could have been a much different article.

Nah, the people being "pushed out" were the tenants. Of course the landlords er property owners were "enticed" out with a nice payday.

[RyanD]

Denver gods are going to hate me. I own two cars at the moment for myself.

[denconyny]

Originally Posted by RyanD

Denver gods are going to hate me. I own two cars at the moment for myself.

Actually, maybe some would arrive at the opposite..... since the only purpose of some gods is to have those on Earth exactly like you to own two cars at the moment all for yourself.....

and then own as many guns as you can as well, stocked to the hilt with ammo.....

Drill babe drill, eh?

[FunctionForm]

Originally Posted by DownhomeDenver

Oh come on...a scar??? What was there before was a scar!! This is an improvement. We already knew by DenverInfill's coverage of this project it wasn't going to be architecturally stunning.

The problem is that while parking lots are temporary, this building is not.

[denconyny]

Originally Posted by FunctionForm

The problem is that while parking lots are temporary, this building is not.

Hmmmmmmm......???

It seems that in and immediately around the DT Denver area there seem to be so many of these surface parking lots that have been present since the 1970s, and looks as though they will easily last into the 2070s. Because current fiscal policies/economics here most likely are in play and important to this.

On the other hand, any building could be easily torn down. Of course, economics also play the major part of any such here as well.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by FunctionForm

The problem is that while parking lots are temporary, this building is not.

LOL. Tis too true!

The odd thing is that an Aloft Hotel would seem to fit much better in the LoDo area. Or maybe the Golden Triangle or even RiNo. It almost seems that although not an ideal location the site was available so "they" (I forget who was behind this) jumped in but deemed the location only suitable for 5/6 story Aloft hotel. At the least they should pick up some of the convention traffic.

I'll vote it to be better than nothing but barely. Maybe down the road it can be converted to workforce housing.

[bobg]

Originally Posted by FunctionForm

The problem is that while parking lots are temporary, this building is not.

Not buying it. That's the third building that's been on that site in my lifetime, and there's several surface parking lots in DT that are older than I am.

It's a drastic improvement over an abandoned burger king. Is it everything that lot could be? Of course not, but we are not NYC where lots like that end up being 30+ story hotels with fancy architecture. Maybe next iteration Denver has filled in enough to justify something like that though.

[RyanD]

Originally Posted by bobg

Of course not, but we are not NYC where lots like that end up being 30+ story hotels with fancy architecture. Maybe next iteration Denver has filled in enough to justify something like that though.

Like I said before, I think 95% of us aren't concerned about the scale. It's the design of the thing. Here's a good comparison:

aLoft DIA


http://www.hotels.com/ho275405/aloft-denver-international-airport-aurora-united-states/

aLoft Downtown



Materials! IMO, Downtown Denver, especially by the Convention Center, deserves much better materials. I hope they put lights on this thing, it would at least help its case at night.

[EngiNerd]

Hope the neon is red at least keep a theme going on the street! They could not have gone any cheaper on the exterior materials, and that is about the laziest design I have seen go in downtown as far as I can remember.

[Mulligan]

Originally Posted by RyanD

Like I said before, I think 95% of us aren't concerned about the scale. It's the design of the thing. Here's a good comparison:

aLoft DIA


http://www.hotels.com/ho275405/aloft-denver-international-airport-aurora-united-states/

aLoft Downtown



Materials! IMO, Downtown Denver, especially by the Convention Center, deserves much better materials. I hope they put lights on this thing, it would at least help its case at night.

I'll take this over a parking lot/vacant Burger King/vacant Chinese restaurant.

[bobg]

Originally Posted by RyanD

Like I said before, I think 95% of us aren't concerned about the scale. It's the design of the thing. Here's a good comparison:

aLoft DIA



aLoft Downtown


Materials! IMO, Downtown Denver, especially by the Convention Center, deserves much better materials. I hope they put lights on this thing, it would at least help its case at night.

I know what you said and I understand that point of view although I don't agree with it. Personally do not see a huge enough difference between those two images to ignite this sort of outrage, although I'll admit materials are not something I get easily upset about. We have a hotel where a former fast food place was, they could have built the hotel entirely out of legos and I would be happy (and quite impressed).

[bcp]

it has SO little relief to it...it's not amazing, but it's just a filler building on a pretty small footprint...they have some work to do still, but punching hte windows or extending the frames would have gone a long, long way.

[Octavian]

Photographs provided courtesy of Denver International Airport:

[mr1138]

I think there's no question that this is a throwaway building. It's hard to argue that the materials and general quality of it are not very good, to say the least. The real debate here seems to be whether or not this lot, or any lot in Denver "deserves better." I think that on this point it's important not to get local's tunnel vision and carry a false idea of what is normal in other cities.

I was just in Chicago just two weeks ago, and almost immediately noticed (probably because this topic comes up so often on this forum) that throwaway buildings are a dime a dozen. The truth is that they are a dime a dozen in most cities; and so-called "great" cities seem to prove this rule as much or more than other cities. Ugly, utilitarian buildings and parking garages with bad pedestrian interfaces, cheap materials or construction, poor F.A.R. utilization etc. etc. are on almost every street.

These kind of buildings are natural redevelopment sites. Even in a place like Chicago's Loop or NYC's Midtown, or central London or Paris, it's clear that the urban composition is still far from "finished," in spite of the fact that hardly any land is left vacant. So why do we expect the growth and development of our (much younger) city to be any different, especially considering that much of our land is still vacant? If we hold out for every new infill development to be "what the site deserves," we will be endlessly disappointed, because that's just not how cities are built.

[Brainpathology]

Originally Posted by FunctionForm

The problem is that while parking lots are temporary, this building is not.

All buildings are temporary.

[mhays]

It's the same where I live. Much like Denver, a Seattle site like this wouldn't typically go woodframe but it happens sometimes, including one happening now a block from the convention center.

Is the building permanent? No, but it would be an unlikely redevelopment site for a long time, because the land would be very expensive with a hotel on it, at least until the hotel needed a massive renovation. But that's ok.

Personally I like to have some smaller buildings mixed with the big ones.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by mhays

Personally I like to have some smaller buildings mixed with the big ones.

Exactly

Originally Posted by Octavian

Photographs provided courtesy of Denver International Airport:

Thank you so much for posting these. I've been dying to see some good progress pics "out there." She's coming along nicely. Another six months or so and they'll be down to punch lists.

[RyanD]

Steel! Steel rising!

[TakeFive]

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