Denver-based hotel developer Stonebridge Companies is planning a seven-story, 202-room hotel for the corner of 17th and Blake street. The project includes a small addition to the rear of the adjacent historic building at 1725 Blake and functionally incorporates that structure with the new hotel while maintain the historic building’s integrity and its Blake Street facade. Stonebridge’s recent hotel projects in Downtown Denver include the conversion of the historic Colorado National Bank building into a Marriott Renaissance and the adaptive reuse of an old Xcel Energy building into a dual-branded Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites.
Here’s a Google Earth aerial showing the project location at 1701 Blake:
The project was first reviewed by the Lower Downtown Design Review Board in November and received approval, with conditions, for mass and scale. The next round before the LDDRB—design detail review—is planned for February 4. All of the following images are from the project’s application materials submitted to the LDDRB for the February 4 meeting. Consequently, these images do not necessarily represent the project’s final design and are subject to further modification and refinement, with additional development review and approvals by the city planning office still to come. The project designer is Newman Architects.
View looking north at the corner, with 17th Street on the left and Blake Street on the right:
Here’s the same angle from Google Street View, showing the site’s current condition as a gaping hole in LoDo’s urban fabric:
The hotel’s porte cochere will be located where the new structure and the historic building meet, with vehicles entering from Blake and exiting via the alley. The development includes two levels of underground parking for approximately 75 vehicles. This next image, the ground floor plan, shows the porte cochere location and other ground-floor uses such as the hotel lobby/lounge and leased space for restaurant/retail in both the new and historic structures:
The upper floors of the new hotel building include a light well that allows the placement of hotel rooms around all four sides of the site. The second and third floors of the adjacent historic building will contain the hotel’s ballroom and meeting rooms. The small addition behind the historic building adds space for a fitness center on the second level and a conference room on the third. Here’s the plan for the second floor:
This view of the Blake Street side shows how the new structure’s urban form thoughtfully responds to its historic neighbor through the use of step downs from the corner and a step back on the upper levels. Vertical glass curtain wall elements above both the 17th Street and Blake Street pedestrian entries help break up the building’s massing, while the separate use of tan and gray brick on the Blake Street side also contributes to the appearance of smaller connected buildings similar in width to the historic 1725 Blake structure.
Overall, this is an exciting project for Denver! It eradicates an ugly surface parking lot and fills a void in LoDo’s urban fabric. Along with two other major infill projects in the heart of Lower Downtown—Market Station and the Dairy Block—the new 1701 Blake hotel will bring significant new pedestrian activity and vitality to the heart of LoDo.
Another shit design. Pardon my French, but Denver has to be the city with the most boring architecture ever. Most multi fam housing will be completely outdated and run down in 10 years and new commercial build is, with very few exceptions, a total joke.
Lower Downtown is a protected historic district. As such, any new infill has to compliment, but not mimic, the existing architecture. Something that this project does. A developer cannot build something that looks like it should be a modern art museum, or at least not in this location.
I almost feel like calling out the OP as trolling. It’s one thing to get into real architecture criticism. But that post didn’t objectively criticize anything tangible, or offer any reasonable solutions, so we’re left guessing what exactly was meant.
Would he prefer something that mimics the historic architecture – maybe embracing things like historic cornices and window pediments? Maybe he prefers a strict interpretation of modernism instead? Could his beef be with the urban form – maybe he would like more setbacks, or courtyards, or something taller like a tower perhaps? Maybe he doesn’t like the construction method. Or the materials chosen (neither of which are easy to tell from the rendering). It’s very hard to tell exactly what he thinks is wrong so that anybody can have a reasoned response to it.
And my point isn’t that the design is necessarily perfect, but that it’s getting a bit tiring to read these endless vague criticisms. Especially when the reality is that the urban form of these new buildings is better than most of what was built for half a century. And it’s hard to say what will or won’t look dated in the future either. Art Deco was hated by the academic architecture establishment in its heyday and were considered disposable buildings until suddenly America fell in love with its old Deco buildings in the 1980s. I grew up understanding mid-century modernism to be butt-ugly, and am suddenly having a change of heart (along with many others who now consider mid-century to be quite stylish). As contemporaries, in fact, we are mostly all quite UN-qualified to say what will or won’t look good in many decades.
If I could critique our modern buildings myself, I personally would like to see an embrace of true historic forms and styles; and a move away from “abstracting” things like cornices and window frames in a modern way. But I say this knowing that many architecture professionals are doctrinaire modernists, and even the postmodernists usually don’t embrace sincere revival architecture – and their opinions are valid, as are the buildings they design. I also think that materials and construction standards should be as timeless as possible. But I have also read academic papers that argue the exact opposite – that buildings should be cheap and largely disposable. These are tangible matters that people can have discussions and disagreements about. It’s much harder to respond in any reasoned way to whether or not “Denver has the most boring architecture ever” or “new commercial builds are a total joke.”
I agree with your point. I think this blog is a forum to critique architecture and urban design but lets try to add to the conversation with thoughtful posts. I have posted my fair share of criticism of proposed buildings but I try to explain why and what it is that I don’t agree with. I think our posts should be fair and talk about the good parts of a design too (even in otherwise poor or lazy design).
As for this building, I too agree that the architect is somewhat limited by the LoDo design standards. However, the stepping down and set-backs are not really good design, they are very elementary design principles and are usually required to meet code. The brick and color is pretty much set with any new development in LoDo. What I think most people yearn for is some creative detailing either with the brick work or ornamentation. A lot of the historic buildings where industrial WAREHOUSES that appear to have more design thought with appealing touches than a lot of newer buildings that look like a SketchUp model. Maybe it is too early to tell all of the little details that will make this building great and I hope it is. My point is that the little details go a long way, especially when designing a building in historic LoDo. I think mixing postmodern with historic forms and styles is very hard to pull off.
All I can say is thank you. Thank you Ted for an intelligent and well thought out counter response and one that also made me chuckle!!
You should visit Dallas sometime.
I love how this new building will incorporate the existing building instead of trying to tear it down like so many other projects in Denver. Another example of successful adaptive reuse!
I’ve walked by this parking lot for 15 years and tried to imagine what would look nice here, and now there finally is a proposal. I think the light brick with simple shapes will be a nice contrast to the darker color brick and more complicated brickwork of surrounding buildings, and the squared off windows make a nice reference to the Sugar Cube building only a block away. The fact that the building is brick is a huge plus, as I think the only unattractive building in the area is the Alamo Plaza building at 17th and Market, though Alamo Plaza building has a very beautiful set of flower beds along 17th Street in the summer that kind of, but not quite, makes up for the plainness of the pre-cast concrete building. Overall, I thinks the building would be a nice addition to downtown on a spot that sorely needs to be something better than a parking lot.
I’m SOOOO glad this lot is finally being developed! It has always been one of my most despised parking lots. As far as the current design goes, the details are obviously preliminary and the renderings serve mostly to show the building’s massing. I’m sure it will look very tasteful when finished. this is a site I think a design that blends in with the LODO character is preferable than a dramatic modern statement because it will compliment the brick historic buildings as you look down 17th towards Union Station. I do think LODO does need some modern buildings mixed in so that the neighborhood doesn’t feel contrived like some cities with overly confining design guidelines, like Santa Fe, Santa Barbara, Sea Ranch, CA., Seaside,FL., etc. these are all cities I like, but their overly restrictive guidelines can make these places feel fake. the office building at 18h and Blake is a good example of a modern, appropriately contrasting design that helps to make LODO more interesting.
Great to see infill of the last remaining parking lots along 17th in Lodo with this project and the Market Station redevelopment.
I don’t think many realize just how restrictive LoDo’s design review board is in terms of design (form,
mass, scale, materiality, etc). It seems that the board is determined to build sugar cube copycats throughout LoDo. The original Sugar Cube is a beautiful, creative building – well-proportioned and detailed. 16M is an inelegant knock-off and pathetic by contrast. LoDo has an invaluable historic context, and it’s vital that it be maintained and respected. But what the LoDo design review board fails to recognize is that building in a historic context can be accomplished in a way that is respectful without being imitative. Look at a city like Amsterdam which buildings from the 21st century stand next to ones from the 15th & 19th. Their juxtaposition creates an urban fabric with much more richness than if the modern buildings were simple imitations of the historic ones. Think of architecture as a product of its time, not an imitation of a past time. I think that the LoDo review board’s ability to understand this concept and act appropriately will be the difference between creating a vibrant, world class, 21st century metropolis or creating a Disneyland downtown. I hope they see the light and get this right.
I hear what you’re saying and largely agree… I remember one modern building in particular in Amsterdam that did exactly what you talk about here. I’m not really sure what the answer is, but can’t help but feel that at least part of it is to give the architects more freedom. As you say, SugarCube turned out great, as did both the EPA building and the one next door (I forget its name). This means that the local community and developers need to be better consumers of good architecture though. I think part of why LoDo designs by committee is just because some of the initial designs are REALLY BAD. I’m guessing that in Amsterdam, things are probably limited only in terms of their form and scale, and architects have a lot more freedom in terms of style and materials (they, and the landowners who hire them, seem to value high-quality architecture). It’s really the classic catch-22 of a design review board. More freedom creates both good buildings and bad ones. With only 30 or so city blocks in the historic district to work with, and dwindling vacant lots, is this risk worth it?
I would push back a little though on the idea that buildings can’t use historic aesthetics while also remaining modern. Just think of all the times that classical architecture has been revived; and each time, it manages to become a style of its own… Renaissance, Palladian, Georgian, Beaux Arts, etc, etc. Each one essentially a form of neo-classical, but each one quite distinct to its own era. Other styles have seen similar revivals over the course of history… Romanesque, Gothic, Egyptian, Tudor, even Art Deco (I’ve seen some modern examples and think Neo-Deco could really work in our day and age).
The problem is that the Modernists told us all to abandon “style” completely, and the schools of architecture that used to teach these styles have fallen out of favor. The postmodernists were only successful at bringing it back in an ironic, rebellious, or playful kind of way. I think what we’re seeing in LoDo is sort of the vernacular version of Postmodernism (the textbook, academic version of it being something like the Michael Graves Denver library). The Postmodernists gave architects permission to use historic forms again, but without any of the doctrine of HOW TO USE those forms that used to exist in schools like the Beaux-Arts. As a result, we get this mish-mash of historic forms and materials, with things like modernist window frames and modern parapets that cannot really be called decorative cornices. And when these things are used, they are often mis-proportioned, or feature ridiculous things like classical columns that look like they’re made out of cheap plaster (I’m looking at the Beauvallon here). Hardly anybody in the architecture establishment is working on a sincere stylistic revival meant to look solid and timeless – but if they were, I don’t think it would necessarily look “Disneyish.” Interestingly, the two best modern examples I can think of are both public concert halls: the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville being Neo-classical, and the Smith Center in Las Vegas Neo-Deco. This is all unless you agree with the Modernists and just don’t care for ornamented buildings at all, and I’ve met plenty of those types too!
As new buildings come replacing the parking lots, I would love it if Denver Infill was able to scoop up an old photo or two of what was on the site 100 years ago, or before DURA demolition. It would be so interesting! Probably depressing too, but it would be cool to see the various progression through the years.
PS – I actually think this building design is very attractive.