The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless has been busy building transitional housing around the downtown area, with recent projects including Off Broadway Lofts, Renaissance Riverfront Lofts, Renaissance Uptown Lofts, and Renaissance Stout Street Lofts. The Coalition continues their important mission with their latest proposed development, Renaissance Downtown Lofts.
Renaissance Downtown Lofts will be located at 2075 Broadway on a triangular parcel at the corner of Broadway and Stout near 21st Street in Downtown Denver’s Arapahoe Square district. Here’s the site outlined on a Google Earth aerial:
The project consists of a 6-story building with 101 affordable apartment units on the upper five floors, with the ground floor accommodating 29 vehicle parking spaces and about 7,000 square feet of lobby, administrative offices, and support functions. The project also includes 40 bicycle spaces within the development for tenants and an additional 10 exterior bicycle spaces for visitors.
Here are a few renderings, courtesy of Christopher Carvell Architects. Please note: these renderings were provided as part of the project’s development application to the city and are preliminary design concepts subject to further modifications and refinement.
Broadway and Stout corner facing west:
Stout Street view with vehicle entry:
Bird’s-eye view looking southwest towards downtown:
An abandoned bank drive-through facility currently occupies the site. The Renaissance Downtown Lofts will provide not only much-needed housing options for Denver’s homeless, but also some solid urban form on a block that suffers from severe parkinglotitis.
We will post more information on this project as it becomes available.
Glad to hear about the development, but the description alludes to a bit of an issue that most developers seem to have: not enough bike spaces.
Virtually every building these days vastly underestimates the desire for bike racks, and there are consequently never enough spaces. This building doesn’t even have one space for every two units.
I agree with you. Why doesn’t the city require one bike space per unit at a minimum, at least for projects in the urban core?
I was recently shocked upon entering a new-ish apartment complex where a friend lived. It had so many fantastic amenities, and yet the bike parking in the garage was comically overwhelmed — like a third of what it needed to be. Bikes were chained to every spare pipe and pole all over the place. I think developers severely underestimate the demand.
I bet the problem is that bike spaces make no money. They can throw in a few just to say they’re there, but they can’t charge a monthly fee for them. My building’s spaces are overwhelmed; my wife and I each have a bike, and virtually every other resident does as well.
That’s nice but, it seems that the zoning for this area isn’t being utilized. Looks as though more and more of the last of the available downtown core property is running out of land for future density.
75% of Arapahoe Square is car storage (parking lots)….
Another case in point being the Block 162 which the land owner / developer was once proposing a 70-84 story building a couple decades ago is now planning a 32-story building for a parcel that is near the center of downtown a block from Republic Plaza. Must be the revised zoning. Is the revised downtown zoning codes really taking future expansion into account? As more inner downtown acreage gets developed with mid-size buildings what land would be left for any forward thinking architecture that might redefine the skyline?
James, the proposal from decades ago I believe you are thinking about was the Trango Tower, which was not proposed for Block 162 but a nearby block and by a different owner/developer. The height of a project on Block 162 or elsewhere in Downtown has not been affected by the recent zoning code revisions, as the zoning for Downtown Denver was not changed at all during the 2010 Zoning Update. The height limit for the parcel where the Renaissance Downtown Lofts is proposed at Broadway and Stout is 200 feet and this project is proposed to go up about 76 feet. However, height limit is not the entire story. The zoning also uses Floor Area Ratio (FAR) to determine the maximum square footage of gross building area for any particular site. For this property, the absolute maximum FAR is 7.00, meaning that there can be no more than 7 times the square footage of the zone lot (parcel) in gross building area. The 7.00 max assumes the developer is taking advantage of all density bonuses. The base maximum FAR is 4.00. In this particular case, the proposed Renaissance Downtown Lofts project’s FAR is 3.62.
The city is currently working on redoing the zoning for Arapahoe Square. https://www.denvergov.org/content/denvergov/en/community-planning-and-development/zoning/rezoning-map-amendments/arapahoe-square-zoning.html
A taller structure would require a change of construction system. 5 stories on a concrete podium is the tallest building you can build with wood. This project received low income housing tax credits and the deal probably would not work with a concrete or steel building.
I agree.
Interesting. I wonder if that means all low income housing would be subject to the same construction system?
there is not a specific requirement for construction systems used in low income housing tax credit projects but projects that meet the award criteria for these types of credits tend to be 40-60 unit 4-5 story wood framed buildings. This project was awarded a 4% and a 9% credit and one of the big reasons they got them have to do with the population they serve and the large number of units they are able to bring to the market.
If you are interested in how these deals work here is a link to their tax credit application
http://www.chfainfo.com/arh/lihtc/LIHTCApplicationNarratives/Renaissance%20Downtown%20Lofts%209%20Application%20Narrative.pdf
Thanks for explaining and the link Ken. Appreciated.
I continue to wonder about similar things. As the downtown becomes more ‘dense’ it is only accommodating mid-sized buildings for the most part. With another 1 million plus in population gain to the metro area by 2030 you would assume there would be a driving need to build some of these parcels to the 1,000 foot mark at minimal. We will need more spaces for jobs, housing (affordable), and adapt the downtown to the changes that will come from such growth.
Ken, glad you pointed out these are preliminary drawings, as they make this project look very much like institutional public housing. Broadway frontage deserves a better streetwall image, if Arapahoe Square is ever to be more than skid row.