Back in February 2013, we announced a new project that was going up on the intersection of 17th Avenue and Franklin Street. The project, named Ascent Uptown, is a three story building containing affordable apartments with ground floor retail. During this project’s build-out, we didn’t have any updates, which is unfortunate. However, it has been called to our attention by DenverInfill reader Chris Jones that Ascent Uptown is now complete. Below is the only post we had on this project; the announcement post.
New Uptown Project: Ascent Uptown
Now for some photos! This is a nice little infill project that takes up a fairly small parcel. The three story building is comprised of both brick and paneling with some very functional awnings for the ground floor retail, which we will get to later in this post!
The parking for Ascent Uptown is in the back of the building towards 16th Avenue down Franklin Street. There is also a B-Cycle station right outside the building!
The street presence, which matters the most, is everything you could want along 17th Avenue. There are two restaurants, Olive and Finch and Patxi’s Pizza, occupying the ground floor retail spaces with the entrance to the apartments on Franklin Street. Every time I have walked by, and if there isn’t a storm rolling in quickly as you can see in the photos, each patio has always been occupied by a good amount of people.
17th Avenue from Logan to York Street has some great patches of retail and restaurants. Ascent Uptown keeps the trend with proving some great ground floor retail along with adding 22 affordable housing units to the neighborhood! Welcome to Denver, Ascent Uptown!
Ryan – how are you defining affordable housing units? I live nearby and my understanding was that these were mostly 600sf apartments for between $1200-1500.
First off, thanks for all the work you guys do on this blog, I always come here to find out about new construction projects in denver.
But here’s my question: is there anything that can be done to get developers to stop building the same building over and over again?
You know what I mean. I lack the proper terminology, but it seems like there is a style that is just being used to death all over denver in all of these new projects.
And while yes, most of the time it is better than what it is replacing, that doesn’t change the fact that we are creating a pretty uninteresting archetectural landscape (with a few, obvious exceptions). Perhaps there is nothing to do, I’m just frustrated that every time I see a lot start construction, I know exactly what is going to be built. The same modernish looking condos/apartments that were just built down the block.
Two thoughts:
1. Since this site by definition features only new development, it’s easy to get the impression that the same design queues are saturating the city, when it’s probably more appropriate to say they’re adding to the patchwork of architectural styles that’s grown over the last 130 years. Denver Squares are ubiquitous (and used to be even more so) but they’ve become a hallmark of the city and are proof positive that the passage of time can create architecturally diverse neighborhoods no matter what’s in vogue.
2. As Ken likes to say, urbanism is about creating places for people, and to that end, here’s the archetypal urban environment, devoid of much in the way of architectural diversity: https://maps.google.com/?ll=40.722819,-73.983371&spn=0.004952,0.010568&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=40.722864,-73.98349&panoid=7Gyh9g8vyJETbT_mvxdeFA&cbp=12,300.58,,0,-10.53.
Yes apparently $1125 studios and $1575 for 750 square foot 1-bedroom apartments are the new “affordable” in Denver (as advertised on Craigslist). I don’t see how anyone who doesn’t make at least $30,000 a year would able to afford even a studio here, but yeah I guess affordable compared to like One City Block.
We should just assume that unless a development is built by the city or some non-profit organization, it is not “affordable” in any sense of the term.
I agree with Mitchell. There is very little variety in the residential buildings going up around town. I love some of the older, more “classical” residential buildings around Capitol Hill, City Park, etc
I like how the ground floor retail turned out. As for the balconies, what a huge difference it would have made to live in one of these units and have even a small one to put out some plants or as a place for you or your guests to have a cigarette and people watch. It’s really small but important details like that, that get overlooked in the name of cost savings imo.
Yeesh, did anybody even notice what’s important?
“The street presence, which matters the most, is everything you could want along 17th Avenue.”
I agree wholeheartedly. With the building’s setback there is ample patio space plus there is a nice sized sidewalk and here I like how it’s away from the street a few feet. I love the use of awnings over the patio and entrances. I like how the patios are raised from the sidewalk level and trimmed in stone to match the trim along the bottom few feet of the building. Simply stated: Awesome execution of the retail.
I don’t think this is bad considering the alternatives and I must say I like the clean look of the building with “Juliet Balconies”. In many instances residents with balconies, tend to use it as a catch all or smoking Den with Cigarette Butts everywhere, however I do agree residents need outdoor space. Is there a Roof Top Deck on this building? If not there should be. JMO
The retail space is done well, but I can’t stand the earth tones. So many buildings in Denver are cream, brown and light brick. I love the few that are all glass or white. They might work better if Denver’s landscape wasn’t already brown most of the year.
One new building that did a terrible job with its retail spaces is the South Wing building at Union Station. Solid storefront with office-grade storefront doors, a small metal panel overhang above and small patio when they had a huge setback to work with there. Some awnings, variation in the glazing, setbacks in the structure, anything would be better than what they designed. If you want to see a newer building with fantastic retail spaces look no further than 16 Market the half block project between Blake and Market on 16th. If only all new buildings looked like that..
That’s called Colotecture and I would take that any day over some of the crap I’ve seen in other cities.