Explore the West Corridor with ULI

Archive of entries posted on August 2010

Explore the West Corridor with ULI

Posted by Ken Schroeppel on August 30, 2010

Once a quarter, Urban Land Institute (ULI) Colorado hosts an Explorer series event that includes both a panel discussion and tour relating to an urban development topic, project, or site. (I’m co-chair of the committee that organizes these events). This Thursday, September 2, our Explorer event is “A West Corridor Story” where we will focus on RTD’s West Corridor light rail line currently under construction.

The panel (held at the Denver Athletic Club downtown) will focus on the corridor and the land use plans, projects, and impacts associated with the new transit line. The tour will then trace the route of the West Corridor line, with a stop and tour of the new St. Anthony’s hospital next to the Federal Center station in Lakewood. The tour will continue on to Golden, where we’ll see many of the great infill projects in Downtown Golden, ending with a reception on a terrace along the banks of Clear Creek.

For more details about the event and to register, please go to this page at the ULI-Colorado website. Tickets are going fast and there are only a few seats left for the tour portion.

By the way, you’ve probably seen all the West Corridor construction activity along Sixth Avenue, with the dramatic bridge over the highway by the Federal Center and the flyover at Indiana Street. But now the construction is closing in on Downtown Denver. Here’s a photo I took yesterday of a new light rail bridge just south of Colfax across from the Auraria West Campus station:

The West Corridor light rail line will open in 2013.

Filed under Events & Meetings, Urbanism.

1 Comment

Union Station Update #31

Posted by Rick Anstey on August 27, 2010

News about the bus terminal floor is so yesterday. Construction of the walls is underway! Okay, so the floor isn’t finished, and it’s still an exciting part of the project. And it may be a while before any concrete is poured for the walls. Still, seeing the project go vertical for the first time is worth our attention. Here are pictorial updates of both parts of the project.

In the first photo above, you can see that six sections of the floor have been poured, bringing the total to date to about 7,000 cubic yards of concrete. The seventh pour is in progress right now. As you see in the second photo above, the first two forms for the concrete walls were put in place on Thursday afternoon and more may be added today. Assembled forms are laying along the side of the hole. It seems to take a few days to build one form but only a few hours to install it.

Also of note is significant, new work on the light rail passenger platform. The first photo below shows the platform canopy at the existing passenger station between Wewatta Street and Union Station. The second photo shows 14 foundations that will support a similar platform canopy at the new light rail station between the Consolidate Main Line (freight tracks) and the bus terminal. Placement of the station is now obvious for the first time. About half of it will be in the 17th Street view plane, and the other half will extend behind Glass House. For the sake of comparison, there are 13 posts supporting the existing canopy so it seems that the new canopy will be slightly longer than the old one. Here’s a peek at what the new canopy might look like. From a distance of 200 feet above, it appears that each foundation is about 10 feet square and about three feet thick. If a bus terminal can float, I guess a light rail canopy can fly; therefore, you need hefty foundations for both.

Please see our Denver Union Station page at JobSiteVistor.com for 20 photos added this week.

Filed under Government & Civic, Infill, Transit, Union Station.

2 Comments

East Corridor Groundbreaking

Posted by Ryan Mulligan on August 25, 2010

RTD has officially broken ground on the East Corridor with service between Denver Union Station and DIA!!

The groundbreaking ceremony was held this morning just south of the main terminal (at the site of the future south terminal and DIA rail station) and was very well attended. Dignitaries in attendance included Senator Mark Udall, Representatives Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), Aurora Mayor Ed Tauer, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, RTD General Manager Phil Washington, as well as a few RTD Board members. Everyone said a few (some more than others) kind words about the project, the process, as well as touted the potential and expectation that the train will forever transform how visitors and residents alike move around our great city.

The East Corridor will cost about $1 billion , the most expensive (but not the longest) in the FasTracks network. Construction activities such as utility relocations will be occurring over the next few months along the corridor with major construction activities getting underway about this time next year. The corridor will be open for service in early 2016. As mentioned in an earlier post, the project is expected to create about 5,000 jobs (directly and indirectly) during the height of construction in 2012-2013.

RTD and DTP had a pretty cool setup to avoid the awkward and cliché “golden shovel” routine at groundbreakings – they had 6 backhoes lined up behind and around the main stage to officially kick off construction. That made for a very cool background and photo opportunity as well!

It’s great to see more progress on FasTracks – especially to see the corridor that most people talk about finally get underway. Plans for a train between DIA and downtown were drawn up along with the airport 15-20 years ago - better late than never!

Filed under FasTracks, Transit.

11 Comments

Ralph Carr Judicial Complex Project Update

Posted by Ken Schroeppel on August 16, 2010

A major milestone was reached this past weekend on the progress of the state’s Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Complex project in Downtown Denver’s Civic Center district: the demolition of the existing Colorado State Judicial Building.

If you were within a mile or two of Civic Center on Sunday morning, you probably heard a very loud bang at about 8:01 AM. That was the explosive “knock-down” (as opposed to an implosion) of what remained of the state’s 1970s modernist judicial building. Over the past month and a half, the Colorado Judicial Building had been undergoing a methodical deconstruction. Rather than ripping the building down outright, the building was “deskinned” of its light gray granite facade panels—part of the project’s recycling plan—which will be used within the new complex’s landscaped plaza areas. Much of the rest of building’s elements were also removed for recycling, leaving by Sunday morning a fragile shell of a building that was poised to be toppled by a few well-placed explosives. Even after Sunday’s explosion, much of the remaining rubble will be recycled.

Here are some DenverInfill photos that document the deconstruction of the Colorado Judicial Building.

July 5, 2010:

July 25, 2010:

Demolition Day minus 1 (that’d be Saturday):

The explosive knock-down Sunday morning, August 15, 2010 (courtesy of CBS 4 Denver):

The aftermath - later Sunday morning about 11:00 AM:

And finally, here’s the latest rendering view from the State Capitol (click/zoom to greatly embiggen) of the future Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Complex:

The Ralph L. Carr Judicial Complex is being funded through user fees backed by federal government stimulus bonds, and not through Colorado taxpayer dollars. The complex is scheduled to be completed in 2013.

Filed under Architecture, Civic Center, Government & Civic, Infill.

20 Comments

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