The W Hotel & Residences project slated for the Office Depot location at the corner of 16th and Market on Downtown Denver’s Block 046 is working its way throught the design review process with the Lower Downtown Design Review Board.

Back in November 2007, the project received approval from the LDDRB for building mass, form, and height. At that time, the developer, Sage Hospitality, also announced that they had reduced the number of residential condominiums from approximately 60 to 14 and increased the number of hotel rooms from 180 to approximately 235. The number of underground parking levels was also reduced from three to one.

As currently approved, the building will be 12-stories (130 feet) in height along the 16th Street Mall, from the alley to the corner, and for approximately half the distance along the Market Street side, where the building will then step down to 5 stories (55 feet) in height the rest of the way along Market until it meets the side of the historic Rocky Mountain Seeds building. The entire 5-story section, as well the first 8 stories (85 feet) of the 12-story section, will feature a mostly masonry façade. Above 85 feet, the remaining four floors will be set back 15 feet and will feature a glass façade. A signature design element of the project will be a 4-story “glass box” with randomly tilted vertical metal bars (subtly suggesting a bunch of “W”s) that will be located right at the 16th and Market corner above the ground floor. A similar (but smaller) design element will be featured farther down on the Market Street side.

The ground floor and 2nd floor will contain the lobby, meeting rooms, and other hotel amenities and functions, with hotel rooms located on floors 3 through 5. The 6th floor will hold a spa and restaurant and, on the rooftop of the 5-story section, a pool and pavilion. More hotel rooms will be located on floors 7 and 8, with the condos occupying floors 9 through 12. The building will also feature a green roof.

At the February 7, 2008 LDDRB meeting, the project was approved for fenestration (design and arrangement of windows and doors), but a request by the developer for a minor change in the already-approved building mass and form was denied. The project will likely return to the LDDRB in March or April for approval of exterior materials and façade detailing, as well as perhaps another attempt at the minor change in the building’s mass and form. Hopefully, by late spring, the W Hotel project will have all of its approvals from the LDDRB, and later this summer, the Office Depot relocated to a new downtown location. Ideally, that would be followed by building demolition in the fall and perhaps the start of construction by the end of the year.