In the past couple of days, the Rocky‘s Art & Architecture section has featured two articles about projects that will shape the future of Speer Boulevard through the heart of Downtown.

First is Mary Chandler’s article on the proposed Bell Tower project. The article includes yet another view of the tower, this one even more clearly shows the articulation of the tower’s facade. Here it is below (credit Jason Knowles/Fentress Architects):

The other article, by the Rocky‘s Mark Shulgold, is about the presentations that were recently made by the six finalist architecture firms competing for the chance to do the redesign of Boettcher concert hall. Of note in this article is the concept, presented by a couple of the firms, of the possibility that the new Boettcher could extend forward toward Speer as a new building rather than being rebuilt entirely within the footprint of the existing concert hall. Intriguing.

Both projects illuminate the opportunity we currently face in deciding what we want Speer Boulevard to become when it grows up. Named after our great City Beautiful-era mayor, Robert W. Speer, the boulevard itself is our city’s grandest, with its special relationship to Cherry Creek, its enhanced streetscape, integrated pedestrian/bike path, and the various parks along its journey from Highland to the Cherry Creek district. Yet the building forms that line Speer Boulevard’s 4.5 mile length is a total mixed bag. In Northwest Denver, the buildings are low-scale but sit right up against the Speer right-of-way. Through the Central Platte Valley and Downtown, the boulevard’s wide setbacks give Speer a less intimate, more automobile-dominant feel. From Colfax south to Downing, a loose string of high-rises punctuate a low-rise fabric of historic street-edge commercial and suburban-like strip commercial with setbacks and surface parking.

Two of the seven Transformative Projects from the Downtown Area Plan (Grand Boulevards and Connecting Auraria) deal with Speer Boulevard. But what we really need to do is to create a vision for all of Speer Boulevard, and clearly define how Speer will serve in the future as the backbone of our urban core. I was recently in Atlanta, and that city’s Peachtree Street functions much like Speer does in Denver, as it connects Downtown with Buckhead, their equivalent to our Cherry Creek district. Along the eight miles between the two, Peachtree Street has become the premier urban street in Atlanta, complete with their main cultural centers and museums, and dozens and dozens—hundreds perhaps—of residential, office, and hotel towers of varying height with vibrant ground-floor retail everywhere. It’s an amazing corridor that could certainly serve as a model for what Speer Boulevard could become, if that’s what we want. Either way, it’s been almost a hundred years since Mayor Speer left us a remarkable, unique boulevard through the heart of our city. It’s time we articulate a vision for Speer Boulevard that will allow it to live up to its full potential.