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Archive of entries posted on February 2010
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Saddlery Building Renovation Update

Posted by Ken on February 18, 2010

Last fall I mentioned that the Saddlery Building at 15th and Wynkoop was finally getting its long-overdue makeover, and how amazing the exterior is looking after a good scrubbing. Today I’m happy to provide additional details about the historic structure’s rehabilitation, thanks to Kevin and Nancy from Studio K2 Architecture.

Work continues on the brick facade restoration, with only the 15th Street side remaining to be cleaned. Also of note has been the work on the windows. Many of the windows, particularly the large ones at street level, had been bricked in years ago. Now, the brick has been removed and, while the new windows are not yet in place, it is exciting to see the building’s steady transformation.

The completed project will include retail/restaurant space on the ground floor, office space on Floors 2 through 5, and the addition of two copper-clad residential penthouses at the top. The images below are courtesy of Studio K2 Architecture:

Here’s a perspective of the entire building as viewed from the roof of the Steelbridge Lofts across the intersection:

2010-02-18_saddlery2

and the Wynkoop side from ground level:

2010-02-18_saddlery1

and the project site plan:

2010-02-18_saddlery3

You’ll notice in both images that a new wide sidewalk will be installed in front of the building along Wynkoop Street. Since the building’s construction in 1900, there’s never been a sidewalk along the Wynkoop side of the building given the loading dock’s location there. Speaking of the loading dock, the existing dock will be removed and a new, wider dock will be added that will not only allow for ADA access to the building, but will provide sufficient room for other uses, such as a restaurant patio. While the diagonal parking and narrow sidewalk located in front of the surface parking lot to the north along Wynkoop will continue to inhibit pedestrian movement, the new wide sidewalk in front of the Saddlery will be a huge improvement to the Lower Downtown streetscape.

The Saddlery Building project will be complete later this year.

Filed under Adaptive Reuse, Historic Preservation, Lower Downtown, Office, Residential.
11 Comments

16th Street Mall Concepts

Posted by Chris on February 16, 2010

As a follow-up to the public meeting of a couple weeks ago, the consultant team for the 16th Street Mall urban design plan is preparing to bring current concepts to the public in open houses next Wednesday and Thursday.  Three broad concepts are currently on the table.  These concepts have considered – among other things – the history of the Mall and its materials, the observed manner in which people use the Mall, and the value judgments of a number of constituents of the Mall – including retailers, downtown residents, accessibility advocates, police, RTD, and the BID.

The concepts outline three alternatives for the future of the Mall.  These range from little intervention to consideration of a broader downtown context.  It should be noted that the technical details and block-by-block plans have not been developed at this point – with the intent to gather public input before taking a preferred concept to detailed development.  The options include the following:

(please note, all images are courtesy ZGF Architects and in each case the north side of the street is to the left)

Option 1. 

 021610_Option1

This concept maintains the existing design of the Mall framework, maintaining the median space between the shuttle lanes through the central portion of the Mall.  Efforts would be made to organize furnishings and vendor operations to improve the overall use of the Mall, as well as to mitigate existing accessibility issues, but the design of the street would be largely unchanged.

Option 2.

021610_Option2

The intent of Option 2 is to enhance the use and social opportunities of the Mall through a reorganization of circulation and amenities.  In this concept, the central portion of the Mall would be reconfigured to the assymetric section currently found on both the east and west ends of the Mall – locating the west-bound shuttle lane within the current median (this would not impact the existing trees or lights, as the width of the median is adequate to accommodate the shuttles).

This option would allow restaurant patios on the north side of the street to expand nearly to the existing flow line of the street, while the existing west-bound lane would be used primarily for pedestrian movement.  In cases where restaurant patios are not found, vendor carts and other amenities would located in the north walkway – with pedestrian circulation shifting to the north (as illustrated in the secend Option 3 diagram below).  In addition, a third row of trees is suggested, providing additional shade to the Mall.

The design team has studied the effect of this concept on the paving pattern, and believes that the historic pattern can accommodate the scheme.

Option 3.

021610_Option3

Option 3 takes the previous option to a whole new level, suggesting the relocation of the west-bound shuttle to 15th Street.  The concept does all of the things that Option 2 does, while also allowing for the potential accommodation of bicycles on the Mall.  Further, it places a focus on 15th Street – a place that is almost forgotten when it comes to walkability and retail viability.

Additional information is available on the Downtown Denver Partnership’s website.

It’s an exciting time for the 16th Street Mall, and it’s our time as a community to have a say in its future.  So get on out to the open houses next week or attend future public meetings!  You can also become a friend of the Mall of Facebook and give input that way.  Whatever the medium, just make yourself heard!

Filed under Pedestrians, Plans & Policies, Transit, Urban Design.
35 Comments

We’ve Got Where the Buffalo Roam Covered – Now, How ‘Bout the People?

Posted by Chris on February 11, 2010

I was alerted this morning to some interesting news coming out of New York.   It seems the acclaimed plaza of the Jacob Javits Federal Building in NYC is about to undergo a transformation – from a design by one internationally-known landscape architect (Martha Schwartz) to a new design by another internationally-known landscape architect (Michael Van Valkenberg).  You can read some info here…

This news raises some questions in my mind about the attention to the design of outdoor spaces in dear old Downtown Denver.  The fact that the current design is being scrapped is surprising – not surprising, however, is that the new space is being designed by an equally-iconic landscape architect as the previous and in a forum that is highly-public.  Given the context, history, and high profile of the plaza and a demanding public, “high design” is a must.  In my visits to New York, I’ve made it a point to visit the Javits plaza on more than one occassion, primarily because it is an iconic, photo-worthy space.  I’ve also made a point to visit the myriad of pocket parks, public squares, building plazas, and city parks scattered throughout Manhattan and the neighboring boroughs – because they are, in themselves, destinations.  And because the public understands not only the value of open space but also the value of dialogue about the quality of open spaces.

javits_1

current javits plaza design

When I think about Denver, though, it seems that open space as destination is mostly missing from our vocabulary. Where is that ethic of design-expectation in Denver’s parks and plazas?  Where are our high-profile public spaces that demand public dialogue?  Off the top of my head I can think of three – the 16th Street Mall, Skyline Park, and Civic Center Park… each of which is a heritage project around which public dialogue is primarily focused on preservation issues.  Where is the groundswell to provide new spaces of varied size and character in our urban environments, or to improve those inoccuous spaces that exist today?

We live in a city that receives upwards of 300 days of sunshine every year.  As Coloradoans, we give tremendous value to the opportunities that the outdoors give us to walk, to stroll, to recreate.  But it seems to me that our high expectations for great open spaces generally fall as building height or density rise.

As a community, we have fairly active dialogue about architecture – and as public expectations have risen in recent years around the value of “good” architecture, “good” architecture has followed.  It’s time now for those public expectations to extend to outdoor spaces.  If we want Downtown Denver residents, employees and visitors to enjoy our city, we should be giving them enjoyable places to experience what is arguably the best aspect of our city – the Colorado outdoors.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the Downtown Denver Partnership’s Leadership Program tackled this issue last year (you can find the final report on their website).

Filed under Public Spaces, Urban Design.
15 Comments

#1: Downtown Denver Infill Boom

Posted by Ken on February 9, 2010

We have finally reached #1 on the Denver’s Top 10 Urbanism Achievements of the Aughts countdown!  It came down to a toss up between Downtown Denver’s infill boom and the whole FasTracks/Union Station thing, but, in the end, I had to go with what had inspired my website and blog in the first place: urban infill development.

Over the span of a century, we built a city that was urban and dense and thriving.  Then, around our 100th birthday, we lost our way and started abandoning what we had built. We moved on to “greener” prairies beyond the city limits and left behind deteriorated buildings that were eagerly converted into weedy vacant parcels or barren surface parking lots. We were not the only big city in the country to do this, but we were particularly good at it.

Around our 130th birthday, we rediscovered the value of our original urban places. We started restoring and rehabilitating old buildings and renewing and revitalizing old neighborhoods. Old became the new new and places like Lower Downtown and the Highlands were getting hip again. By Birthday #140, we were running out of historic buildings to convert and yet the demand for being in or near Downtown Denver was stronger than ever, so “infill” became the the “in” thing. One by one, weedy vacant parcels and barren surface parking lots were transformed into condos and hotels and offices and apartments and shops and everything in between, and by the time our big Sesquicentennial rolled around, infill was everywhere. Recently the Great Recession has slowed Denver’s infill boom, but most political, demographic, and socio-economic indicators suggest that once the economy picks up again, Denver’s urban infill boom will continue.

So just how big was Downtown Denver’s urban infill boom from 2000 to 2009? As Thomas Jefferson would say, let facts be submitted to a candid world:

1127 Sherman, 1135 Broadway Residences, 1200 Delaware, 1200 Elati, 1400 Wewatta, 1515 Wynkoop, 16 Market Square, 1740 Franklin, 1755 Blake, 1800 Larimer, 1870 Vine Street Townhomes, 1890 Wynkoop, 1900 16th Street, 2100 Uptown Lofts, 2101 Market, 2245 Blake, 24 Walnut, 2428 Champa, 25th & Tremont Townhomes, 2999 Lawrence, 3040 Zuni, 450 E. 17th Avenue, 816 Acoma, 920 E. 17th Avenue, Adair Group Offices, Ajax Lofts, Alexan Prospect, Alfred A. Arraj US Courthouse, Antares Urban Townhomes, Argonaut Liquors, Art House Townhomes, Auraria Science Building, Ayr on 29th, Ballpark Lofts, Bank of Denver Headquarters, Blair-Caldwall Library, Blake 27 Brownstones, Blake Street Apartments, Boulder Street Townhomes, Broadway Plaza Lofts, Brownstones at Riverfront Park, Brunetti Lofts, Campus Village Apartments, Capital Grille, Capitol Heights Apartments, Central Court, Champa Square, Chroma Town Homes, City Park Residences, City View Townhomes, Cityscape Townhomes, Clay Street Residences, Colorado Convention Center, Confluence Heights, Corona Park, Creekside Lofts, Denver Art Museum Hamilton Building, Denver Art Museum Residences, Denver Justice Center, Denver Newspaper Agency Building, Denver Square, DHMC Pavilion, Diamond at Prospect, Diamond Lofts, DMHC Parking Garage, East Village Redevelopment, Embassy Suites Hotel, Emerson Uptown Lofts, EPA Region 8 Headquarters, Fire Clay Lofts, FirstBank at Colfax & Franklin, Flats 15, Flour Mill Lofts II, Four Seasons Hotel & Residences, Franklin Square, Frontview 40, Garden Factory Lofts, Gates Corporates Headquarters, Gilpin Grove, Glass House, Glenarm Place Condos, Golden Row, Grant Park, Hampton Inn Highland, Highland Bridge Lofts, Highland Court, Highland Crossing, Highland Lofts, Highland Square Lofts, Highland Terrace, Highlands Vista, Hilton Garden Inn, Humboldt Gardens, Hyatt Denver Convention Center Hotel, Inca 29 Urban Brownstones, Italianate Townhomes, Jack Kerouac Lofts, Jefferson at CityGate, La Villa de Barela, Lofts at Downing Street Station, Lombard Gate, Luxe Modern Row Homes, Marais Uptown, Merchant’s Row, Metro State Parking Garage, Metroview Urban Living, Monarch Mills, Museum of Contemporary Art, Off-Broadway Lofts, One Lincoln Park, One Riverfront Park, Park Avenue West Residences, Park Place Lofts, Pearl of the City, Pearl Street Victorianan, Piranesi, Portofino, Premier Lofts, Promenade Lofts, Quality Hill Townes, Rail Yark Marketplace, Renaissance Riverfront Lofts, Residence Inn by Marriott, Residences at 1882 Race, RiverClay, Riverfront Tower, Shoshone Heights, Shoshone Lofts, Speer Lofts, Spire, St. Joseph’s Medical Offices, St. Lukes Lofts, State Capitol Parking Garage, Steelbridge Lofts Annex, Strada Flats, SugarCube, Swallow Hill, TAXI, Tejon Square, The Bartholomew, The Beauvallon, The Dakota, The Delgany, The Edge at City Park, The Ellington Lofts, The Gathering Place, The Manhattan, The Mansion, The Metro, The Milan, The Park One Riverfront, The Point, The Proado, The Renaissance, The Station at Riverfront Park, Titanium Lofts, Tower on the Park, Townhomes at Riverfront Park, Umatilla Townhomes, Upper Larimer Lofts, Uptown Apartments, Uptown Lofts, Uptown Square, Urbans @ Curtis, Urbans @ Glenarm, Urbans @ Stout, Urology Center of Colorado, Villa Riva, Villages at Curtis Park, VOA Bob Magness, Walker’s Row, Washington Square, Waterside Lofts, Wellington Webb Municipal Building, Welton Place Townhomes, Wyandot Overlook, Zi Lofts, Zocalo Condos… and many more I’m sure I’ve missed.

Not too bad for a 1.5-mile radius of Downtown, huh?

The Aughts were a pretty darn good decade for urbanism in Denver. Let’s hope for an even better decade in the Tens… there are a lot of surface parking lots to go!

Filed under History, Infill, Urbanism.
9 Comments

#2: FasTracks and Union Station

Posted by Ken on February 7, 2010

I was thinking the other day that it’d be nice to do something big and splashy to celebrate FasTracks/Union Station coming in at #2 on our Denver’s Top 10 Urbanism Achievements of the Aughts list, so I arranged for the feds to give us a billion bucks and I threw in the Union Station movie as a bonus. I hope you liked it!  Seriously though, that was quite a happy coincidence of events as I was about to post that Denver’s FasTracks transit program and its redevelopment of historic Denver Union Station are #2 on the countdown. Friday was certainly a great day for Denver.

Cities around the world have wisely built and maintained balanced transportation systems that include rail transit, cars, busses, bicycles, and a variety of contraptions in between. In the United States, we started out well, with streetcar systems (first horse-drawn, then electrified) running on the streets of just about every major city in the country. But then we abandoned all of that after World War II and went on an automobile binge that we have come to realize may not have been all that wise. Cars are awesome machines and the personal freedom they provide is phenomenal. But just like so many other things in life… too much of a good thing can be bad. So better late than never, cities across the US, including Denver, are bringing back rail transit to provide some balance to our transportation systems. It’s called having a diversified portfolio of transportation assets. I am proud of Denver for taking such a bold step in the right direction.

FasTracks is more than just an ambitious regional public transit program. It will also positively influence our regional land use decisions. Major employment centers, residential developments, shopping malls, and other land uses that draw or produce high numbers of people will be/should be located in the future along our transit corridors. That is one of the principles on which Denver’s regional MetroVision plan is based. It’s also common sense.

But let’s be very clear about what FasTracks is and what it isn’t. FasTracks is a regional transit system primarily designed on the hub-and-spoke model to move people from the suburbs into and out of Downtown Denver. Such a system is absolutely necessary and I wholeheartedly support the FasTracks program, as should you. But we also have to recognize that for those of us in Denver proper, FasTracks is only one side of the transit coin. FasTracks doesn’t provide Denver with the transit connections we need and desire within and between our denser urban core districts. That is where a new Denver streetcar system would come in, but that’s a topic for future blog posts.

If FasTracks alone wasn’t enough, we have the whole Union Station redevelopment to celebrate as well. Many cities destroyed their historic train stations or converted them beyond repair into shopping malls or festival marketplaces or whatnot. Fortunately in Denver, our Union Station remains intact and is now poised to once again serve as the rail hub for the city and region. Along with its associated private sector development, the Union Station project will complete the transformation of the Central Platte Valley as a dynamic transit-oriented extension of Downtown. Downtown Denver just keeps getting better and better…

Filed under Plans & Policies, Regionalism, Sustainability, Transit, Union Station.
15 Comments

It’s Official: Union Station, Gold Line, East Corridor, Get Funding

Posted by Ken on February 5, 2010

Here’s Federal Transit Administration head honcho Peter Rogoff announcing that Denver’s FasTracks program will receive $300 million in loans for Denver Union Station and $1 billion in direct payments over several years for construction of the Gold and East commuter rail lines.

2010-02-05_fed_funding

This is a great day for metro Denver!

Filed under Economic Growth, Events & Meetings, Transit, Union Station.
3 Comments

FasTracks Funding Announcement Today

Posted by Ken on February 5, 2010

This is not unexpected, yet it is still huge news for the success of the FasTracks program:

2010-02-05_fastracks_announcement

This federal funding commitment will allow the Gold Line and the East Corridor Line to move forward. Construction is expected to get underway on the East Corridor Line this fall. For more details, check out Kevin’s post at the Inside Lane.

Filed under Events & Meetings, Transit, Union Station.
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16th Street Mall Urban Design Plan – Public Meeting TONITE!

Posted by Chris on February 4, 2010

As many know, the 16th Street Mall is currently the centerpiece of an important conversation.  A technical assessment completed in the Fall of 2009 investigated the construction and economic viability of the Mall’s existing surface.  Phase 2 – an Urban Design Plan focused on imaging the Mall of the next 30 years – is currently on-going… and tonite is an opportunity to see what designers and the project’s Steering Committee are considering. 

The presentation will include 3 alternative concepts for the Mall’s functional, operational, and physical future.  And as if that weren’t enough to get you excited, Laurie Olin (one of the original designers of the Mall and an internationally-respected landscape architect) will be on had to offer his impressions.  The details below:

16th Street Mall Urban Design Plan Public Meeting #2, Thursday February 4 (today)

5:30 – 7:30 pm, Wellington Webb Building, Room 1.B.6 (enter from Court Place)

Filed under Events & Meetings, Pedestrians, Public Spaces, Streets, Transit.
6 Comments

A Visit to Writer Square, Part 3

Posted by Chris on February 3, 2010

This one made gave me a chuckle. 

Where once there was a planter at the corner of Larimer and 16th, there is now a raised terrace (outside the entrance to the Overland Sheepskin Co.).  Seems it’d be a great location for a coffee cart and some seating… or a similar social space.  In fact, there is a sign within the terrace advertising just such activities.  However, access is a bit of an issue…

terrace     locked-out

Filed under Public Spaces, Urban Design.
8 Comments

Denver Union Station: Portal to Progress Film Premiere

Posted by Ken on February 2, 2010

Havey Productions, one of Denver’s leading film production companies and producers of several historical and cultural documentaries of significance, will premiere their new film, Denver Union Station: Portal to Progress this Friday, February 5, at the Hyatt Regency Denver – Convention Center Hotel.  You are invited!

2010-02-02_dus_film

At Union Station Advocates, we’ve been working for over a year to help raise funds for the film’s production. Along with many other community groups and contributors, we are thrilled that this feature-length movie on Denver’s Union Station is now ready for its big debut. General Admission tickets are $15 and available at 6:00 PM. Patron Level tickets are $100 and include a hosted bar and hors d’oeuvres reception at 5:30 PM. To purchase tickets in advance or to check out a trailer of the move, click here.

Denver’s Union Station redevelopment has been a long time in the making. First, Lower Downtown blossomed in the 1990s. Then, the Central Platte Valley emerged in the 2000. Waiting patiently in between those two vibrant districts has been our historic Union Station and its neighboring parcels, which is now poised to be the star of the 2010s.

The excitement about this project is palpable. This past fall, 800 people packed Union Station for a party the likes of which the old station hasn’t seen in generations. Fundraising is underway to bring back the Welcome/Mizpah Arch to the Union Station site. New projects like the relocation of IMA Financial’s headquarters to the Union Station site are being announced. Design work for the massive project is nearing completion and the project authority, DUSPA, has a new website with all the latest renderings, plans, and diagrams. And now… Denver Union Station-The Movie… is set to premiere. Please join us this Friday to celebrate not only a movie, but the launch of Denver’s most important civic project since Denver International Airport.

Filed under Events & Meetings, History, Media, Union Station.
5 Comments
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