Yesterday was an exciting day for the teams over at 1401 Lawrence; the project has officially topped out! What exactly does that mean? The project has reached its final height, at 22-stories or 304 feet, with the last beam lifted to the top yesterday. I was very fortunate to be the event photographer thanks to the great folks at First Gulf, the developer of 1401 Lawrence.
The topping out ceremony consisted of four speeches made by (left to right) John Macneil, President of First Gulf, Steven Bangert, CEO of CoBiz Financial, Amy Hansen, Real Estate Department Partner at Polsinelli, and Albus Brooks of City Council, District 9. Polsinelli is the anchor tenant, and CoBiz will have a branch on the ground floor, as well as corporate offices on two other floors.
After the speeches, these four were the first to sign the beam which will be kept on the building for its lifetime.
Everybody at the topping out event had a chance to sign the beams, including myself. The team for the Beck Group, who have worked around the clock building 1401 Lawrence, posed for a photo right before the beams were hoisted up.
Once the crane hook came down, the beams were hooked on and lifted to the top.
Up they go!
1401 Lawrence is turning out to be a really great project. The most notable feature, the glass facade, acts like a mirror, reflecting Colorado’s brilliant blue skies.
In a sea of masonry and earth tones, the all glass building brings such a great change around this area of Downtown Denver.
The aluminum and glass paneling is also making quick progress on the northeast side. Since this project is now topped out, what you see here is the final height of 1401 Lawrence.
With fourteen updates, it is almost time to bring 1401 Lawrence to a close. The next time we visit it will be when it is completed; around this fall. What a fantastic project!
Any idea why the upper most full floor on the 14th st. side doesn’t extend out like the floors below it? I am not sure how the glass wall will extend all the way up to cover the mechanical penthouse with so little support.
The uppermost floor is strictly for mechanical so it doesn’t need to have the entire floor plate of the rest of the building. The glass is structural glass, so it’s pretty beefy and can hold its own. As a redundancy, I’m sure they will put in some support that will anchor to the roof. Glass extending above the roof to cover the mechanical floor is pretty common, we just don’t see it much in Denver.
Here is a rendering none of us have really seen (thanks to First Gulf):
You have a solid roof on the northeast side where the aluminum + glass is with the structural glass curtain wall extending just above it to cover most of the mechanical. It’s not a whole lot of glass that’s not going to be attached to the building.
Awesome, thanks Ryan. I feel like they are going slowly with the glass to tease us. I’ll be interested to see how the parking covering turns out. It looks better in the renderings than what they have put up so far.
While much better than a surface lot, this is almost as disappointing as the Four Seasons.
Nice design but it lacks the of height of the original design just like the Four seasons. It always seem that Denver gets short changed when it cones to height while smaller cities like Calgary, Edmonton, Oklahoma City and even the Metropolis of Mobile Alabama build taller than Denver. As a native of sixty years I have seen most of the skyscrapers rise downtown and when the big three went up the early eighties I was sure that it was only a matter of time when I would see a 75 plus story or a thousand foot tower rise and dominate the skyline like similar sized cities. Now I can only hope and pray that I can witness this before I leave this world!
PS, The Four Seasons had a chance to truly be a iconic skyscraper at 67 plus floors and it’s original Empire State like design. VERY DISAPPOINTING!!!!
Although it seems depressing the way you put it Dean, I have to say I agree with you. I’ve also been a long time dreamer of Denver rising to it’s deserving ranks of at least the top ten of metropolitan areas. I’m noticing also that you will basically be ignored by these bloggers. I’m going to use the ‘B’ word, Denver has become dominated by a Boulder-ized mentality of growth resistors otherwise known as progressively green for the last 30 years and here we are deep into group think that is supposed to be representative of the best of regional intelligence adding more and more red tape to the process with the ideal or idea that we can build a ‘perfect formed downtown’-(buildings stepped up in a synchronized formation) with ‘pedestrian friendlier’ heights which is a bit daunting to the natural patchwork process of most investment that are those investments that creates urban centers. Developers have come and gone in Denver for this reason alone. There is just too much restriction that seems to protect the gleam in the eyes of a certain group having a chokehold on the liberties of those who were once at more liberty to build their dreams. It’s a far different bogged down process today and very limited by another form of special interest created by calling those with deeper pockets the culprit. This doesn’t exclude themselves from their own level of culprit like a pig with green lipstick. We would be wise to change our ambitious imaginations and just get out of the way. Let these younger men do what they think is best until they are then also replaced. Give up on the idea or dream that Denver could surpass other sister cities but stand by and watch what other cities do and follow other models. It’s possible wisdom to assume that many newer schools of thought go through a transformation from a consortium of similarly related ideas while that transformation is also just a residual from the very original ideals, the mew ideals only appear in the current to have the same potency and that’s the nature of generations (regenerating) as well.
Love that photo you took from Larimer square, look at those cloud reflections!
Thanks Eracer! I love that reflective glass!
I like the picture from Larimer St. Very cool view.
Thanks Kyle M! It’s such a great juxtaposition!
I think this is a very attractive building although it looms over Larimer Square a bit more than I would prefer. I find comments that it is not tall enough (a common response from reviewers on websites like this) to be terribly misguided. A reference to Oklahoma City, presumably the Devon Tower, are rather sad. The Devon Tower is grossly out of scale with its surroundings. My idealized downtown Denver would have a lot of building in this height range.
I agree. I think 1401 is the perfect height to provide a nice step-up from the low-scale Larimer Square to the very tall Four Seasons and 1144 Fifteenth.
I agree with your observation Ken about the nice step up in height when going from Larimer square to the Four Seasons & 1144 15th. Sometimes I have wondered when will we see some kind of downtown Denver high-rise constructed that will be taller than the Republic Plaza and the only thing that will enter my mind if/when that happens sometimes down the line is that the economics of our city/real estate here is changing to the point where the cost behind land acquisition & construction will have gotten to “that point” to make sense.
Love the design. And I agree with Ken, it’s a nice step up to the Four Seasons. Sort of looks like it’s little brother.
I don’t believe my views are misguided at all. I am just one of many that think cities should
be built up and not out; we already have dozens of towers in the 300 to 400 foot range.
I was raised in the Sunny Side area of north west Denver that I will never call Lo Hi and it pains me to see the ugly gentrification going on there. Instead of building these hideous apartment buildings that none of us natives care for, there should be a 400 foot minimum height in the Central Platte valley. That way they could fit more of the fifteen thousand transplants that move here on a monthly basis. However, that will never as happen long as our civic leaders have that provincial and overgrown cow town state of mind. In my opinion, that would have been a much better way to accommodate this explosive growth.
Here is my motto, We are very few, we are totally disgusted, we are Denver Natives!!!!
Really? If you have height minimums like that, nothing will ever built here. Ever. You will have more of an urban wasteland, full of all that surface parking everybody seems to love, and an even greater housing crisis on your hands. I get what you are saying about the apartments that are going in, but that’s happening everywhere from Seattle, to Nashville, to Minneapolis, to Los Angeles. I’m sure back in the 1940’s and 50’s, people were saying the same thing about all the ‘copy and paste’ apartments going in Capitol Hill. It’s all part of the cycle.
Also, developers aren’t going to front that much cash for a 40+ story building and keep the costs lower than what you see today. It’s just not feasible. These new 4/5-story apartments are the affordable housing of the future. The Cap Hill you probably know and love today, just 10-15 years from now.
Anyways, that’s my two cents. I’m a Denver native as well and, as much as I agree about some of the ‘meh’ architecture going in on the lower scale projects, it’s nice seeing the lots filling up so we can start going more vertical as vacant land becomes a rare commodity.
If you look at the skylines of Calgary or San Diego and compare them from lets say 15 years ago to today you’ll notice those two cities have built many more residential high rise towers. Why do developers finance larger projects there and not here? We have been named the number one city to relocate in the US. The demand for high rise development is here, capital investment isn’t the issue. A 4-5 story building isn’t enough to accommodate all the transplants, so they in turn drive the locals further from Denver by inflating the housing market. even in Arvada or Golden prices are booming. As for those who live in the inner city $1500.00 a month for a studio apartment just isn’t affordable. My beloved city is rapidly becoming a place for the havealots and the people are being forced out just like San Francisco.
One word. Condos. Developers can finance those projects because people are actually buying into the building. Apartments are made for rent only, so they are going to go the cheapest route possible aka 4-5 story buildings. High-rise apartments are rare because the cost is so high, and renting at a reasonable price gets risky. See rents for The Platform, Joule, etc.
Calgary and San Diego sure are building a lot of residential towers but, once again, they are all for-sale units, which Denver has ZERO under-construction right now. I recently was at a DRCOG (Denver Regional Council of Governments) presentation and they said because of the condo defects laws we aren’t going to be getting any condo product soon. It has to be resolved through a state level. I guarantee once we get the situation under control, we will see more ‘Spire’-like condos eventually hit our skyline again.
TL;DR – There are a lot of hidden factors as to why we don’t have ‘skyline changing’ residential towers. Most high-rise residential is for-sale where Denver is building all for-rent which is going to be built with the most cost effective route aka 4-5 story builds.
Dean, Ryan is absolutely right. Once the Construction Defects Law is finally revised, more costly high-rise condos will again be built. But since the present special-interest state law was passed a decade ago, virtually every condo project developer in the state is being sued, in mostly frivolous class-actions, benefiting no one but the trial lawyers who wrote the law.
For three years, a bi-partisan majority in both houses of the legislature has favored the same adjustments recently passed in Denver, Lakewood and many other city ordinances. But the governor refuses to lead on this critical issue, which has created the out-of-whack real estate market here, the fastest-rising housing costs in the nation, with condos forced out of the equation.
The condo choice is simply not affordable to first-time home buyers and empty-nesters who want to down-size into a condo. All the housing starts in the Denver Area and across Colorado for several years have either been an explosion of new, cheaper apartments or single-family homes. No condos. Millennials moving here in droves want them, and like high-rise urban living, but the wave of lawsuits has made condo projects prohibitively too expensive to build, and un-insurable for builders.
All those elegant residential towers in San Diego are mostly condos, not more cheaply-built apartments. In Colorado, follow the money, look at who’s getting contributions from trial lawyers, and then see who’s blocking Construction Defects Reform in the legislature.
In an election year, don’t look for politicians endangering their sources of campaign contributions, so the much-needed condo defects law reforms will remain locked up in a committee. Maybe next year it will happen, and then maybe in a couple more years, you’ll see a lot of high-rise condo towers going up again in Denver.
Part of the reason that SF has become a place for the “havealots” is that, when the city wanted to allow higher density, the NIMBYs in neighborhoods refused. If a city is not allowed to become more dense, not just downtown but also in the center city neighborhoods outside the downtown core, then the prices of homes, for rent or for sale, go up because there is high demand and little availability. Fewer people can afford to live there. That is the consequence of NIMBYism: a wealthier, and generally more homogeneous neighborhood. While that may preserve the appearance that all those people fell in love with when they moved there five years before, it does not preserve the neighborhood’s real character.
Yup that’s what I call “Boulder-ization”. the Construction Defects Law is a typical Boulder-ization scheme aimed at high volume and affordable housing growth. It’s that as much as lottery dollars used in buying up all the land around the suburban sprawl to deem as open space and or identifier space buffers between the cities is just so it doesn’t all connect to become the dreaded fear tactical ‘megalopolis.’ I don’t think anywhere in the United States is open space purchased as along the front range of Colorado which strategically will also elevate the land values. Good for large company infill land owners. It’s my bet that this law will never get revised because it serves a purpose and that is to make certain land owners and realtors rich period. Land owners and realtors don’t really give a damn about the real positive effects of growth control and are know that they are lucky to benefit from it. Don’t a lot of those land owners live out of state?
Wait, so you want density downtown because you don’t don’t want density in your old neighborhood? That’s just NIMBY-ism in another form.
It’s Sunnyside, man. One word. And it’s close enough to downtown to absorb some of the density. The “bell curve” approach, with the tallest buildings in the center, is the only thing that makes sense in the long run. Having cattle grazing a mile or two from 50-storey buildings is not sustainable.
I suppose you asked the cows?
Personally and in my little bitty opinion, I think over perfectly planned downtowns are too controlled for their own good, for the sake of urban vibrancy which by commerce and economic nature is happenstance and risk as much if not more than downtown organizers and planners who are in vision practice turning away prospects with a desire for a certain 500k-750k s.f. of space in one building. Oh no we’re sorry we are speculating for clients who are in need of 100k to 200k s.f. of space so please go somewhere else. And they will, they’ll go to Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Boise or Oklahoma City for that matter.
As one of the, I’m sure, many visitors to this site without an Urban Planning background, I’ve learned a great deal here about transportation, zoning, the importance of mixed-use real estate development, etc. For that reason, I’d love to read an educated analysis about the construction defect laws people abstractly mention every once in a while.
I know it’s probably outside the scope of this website and has a political lean to it, but I’m eager to learn more about why this consumer protection law is unique to Colorado and why it different than other cities with more condo growth. You guys know what you’re talking about and likely have great data for people who might like to influence the issue.
My initial thought is that, when my buddy bought a condo at the Beauvallon a number of years ago, it wasn’t his fault they built it without the necessary drainage to preserve the stucco exterior. Should he and the other owners have been financially liable for the repairs having thought they were purchasing a fully-functioning urban property? I just don’t understand how the law is stopping developers from delivering the product they advertise.
A comprehensive look at the issue would be an excellent addition to the website.
Ryan, I’m glad you find this site informational!
I would google the question you’ve asked as others in the media (such as the Denver Business Journal) have put together good comprehensive overviews of the issue. It is outside of the scope of this blog. However, one thing to note as it relates to the characterization of the issue as the “developers not delivering the product they advertised”… (and I’m not picking on you specifically Ryan because EVERYONE seems to blame the “evil” developer for construction failures, but you’ve prompted me to respond now…)
There are many reasons why these construction failures occur. One of them could be a developer who purposefully chose to cut corners and push his architects and contractors to do everything to the bare minimum allowed by law. However, other likely scenarios include:
1. Product defect: A building component arrived from the manufacturer with an unknown defect that failed after the building was completed
2. Poor product design: A component was chosen to be used in the building that ultimately was poorly designed by the manufacturer, causing failure after the building was completed
3. Improper product installation: A building component was improperly installed by the contractor or subcontractor’s laborers, causing failure after the building was completed
4. Poor building design: The architect designed the building in such a way that ultimately led to failure of a building component or system after the building was completed
5. Bad luck: Everything was designed, manufactured, and installed correctly, but a building component failed much earlier than it should have
My point is, people should understand that there are some extremely ethical developers who poured their hearts and souls into their projects who experienced construction defects after the projects were completed, much to their dismay. Let’s not characterize the construction defects issue as being caused by greedy, nefarious developers out to screw the people who buy their condos. Humans are not perfect and neither are the buildings we build. When something goes wrong, there can be plenty of places to point the blame.
Thank you for your reply, Ken.
No one is accusing developers of having “evil” intentions, but I still fail to see why consumers should be financially liable for the other reasons you stated (#1-5). When one purchases residential property, the expectation is that it is fully functioning upon delivery. If the product fails within a reasonable amount of time, then the developer and the subcontractors they chose to deal with — very simply — have not fulfilled their end of the contract that was signed. The reasons for the failure (ill intentions, incompetence, honest mistake, whatever it may be) are immaterial.
I appreciate you suggesting further reading, but I think the Denver Business Journal, given who funds that publication, is a large reason why this debate has developed such counterproductive rhetoric. We’re not getting useful comparative information to review and we’re generally not reading a perspective interested in honoring consumers.
Oh I don’t disagree with your view that consumers should expect a non-defective home upon delivery. My main point was that if you read social media sites and their comment sections (not necessarily so much this one), that the “evil developer” is cited about 99% of the time as the culprit for this issue. I was referring you to the DBJ for their coverage last year that focused on the complex historical/legal technicalities that led to this issue, not for their editorial position. The way I look at it is this: The vast majority of the other 49 states don’t have this issue. Somehow they have found a good balance between consumer protection and undue risk exposure for developers to allow for condominium development to occur. I see no reason why we can’t do that here. Yet the years tick by and virtually ZERO condominium development. That’s not a good thing.
Ryan,
Ken’s overview is a great overview and he’s definitely right if you google it and look up articles written by the DBJ or someone else, you’ll get a much more complete overview. The basic understanding of the law as I know it is, back in the early 2000’s there were some developers – with Craig Nassi who developed the Beauvallon for example – that basically intentional skimped on certain aspects of construction in the building and they became huge issues that resulted in settlements between the HOA and the developer. Now, as Ken mentioned there are other examples of developers who didn’t intentionally do that where something else happened that falls under one of the examples Ken mentioned. As a result the state drafted the current construction defects law to state that a HOA could sue a developer by a majority vote of the HOA’s board. What happened after that was that there were some over zealous law firms that pushed HOA’s to sue on relatively “questionable” construction defects because they know since the law states litigation that they would get pretty paychecks from that, while short to medium term financial objectives of the HOA and people in the building would be sacrificed as if a HOA is in a lawsuit financing and selling condos in the building become an absolute nightmare and then cash buyers have significant leverage amongst owners that have to sell. Local cities have passed their own new ordinances like Denver, Lakewood, Lone Tree & Commerce City for example; however the question that remains is if those cities ordinances contradict the State’s and if a lawsuit happens, who’s ordinance stands up in court. From a developer standpoint, the insurance costs to develop condos vs apartments is more than triple and there are only very few insurance companies who will even touch condo developer insurance which is why the very select few condo developments in Denver in recent history (i.e. 250 Columbine in Cherry Creek) were so expensive & high end on a per square foot basis to cover that cost. Furthermore, with the added liability of possible litigation within the first 8 years of the buildings life and having to set aside funds for a lawsuit that could happen. Anyway, what needs to happen is for a law to pass that’s not too far to one side or the other (right now it is very pro HOA and litigation is easy). Hope this helps.
Ken, thanks for tackling this thorny, emotional and political issue. For anyone involved in the Colorado real estate market — and that’s everybody, including renters who are paying too much, considering the income levels here — the Construction Defects Law is the perfect example of Unintended Consequences from special interest legislation.
Like the legalization of recreational marijuana, we soon discover there are so many, many “good” and “bad” consequences in changing the law. As the waves go out from Colorado being the first state to act, across the nation to the federal level, we see more and more angles, more impacts.
For example, an “urban myth” raging through Colorado real estate circles is the belief that many legal — and illegal — pot people are converting their un-bankable cash into cash purchases of houses, driving up home prices. There’s evidence to believe it’s a real factor in escalating home prices.
The point is, we can’t always see what’s down the road, when we change directions. Back in 2000, some shoddy condo construction brought out demands for better consumer protections for home buyers. But when a special interest group, trial lawyers who profit from defending defect victims, got involved in writing the Defects Law, they made HOA class actions so easy, that virtually ALL builders, “good” and “bad,” got dragged into court. And so did HOAs, which discovered that class action lawsuits create a “paralysis” among all of their members, who can’t sell their homes, because banks won’t finance mortgages, and buyers get scared off.
Meanwhile, insurance companies demand higher and higher premiums from builders, to the point that they’ve almost all backed out. So building condos is a no-go. Which removes the usual condo choice, as a first-time home purchase, from the market. And the critical shortage of condos drives up the prices of existing condos, and every other kind of housing, including rentals. So the cure is worse than the disease. Good intentions, unintended consequences.
All of the recent city ordinances are aimed at leveling the playing field between condo buyers and their HOAs and developers, through arbitration instead of going to court, and stricter standards for class actions. But trial lawyers will naturally challenge these tougher ordinances in state courts, which will kick the issue around for years, under appeals.
Meanwhile, no new condos, period. Until the legislature changes the state law. Which is all tied to party politics and campaign financing in an election year. My late uncle, a Beltway-wise moderate, used to say, “We have the best government money can buy.”
Building housing is a business. And presently in Colorado, building condos is a bad business.
Amen.
Nash,
I respectfully assert your post, and others of its kind, are a major problem within the Construction Defect Law discourse. For the second time in this thread, you’ve written a 200-plus-word abstract diatribe on tort reform and fail to establish a reasonable argument for why this legislature has directly affected condo development. You seem passionate about the issue, so try to answer me few things:
1.) How is Colorado’s law different from that of other states? Is Colorado uniformly effected, or is this only a problem in Denver? Where is the data that supports this?
2.) If Colorado is so radically stringent, then in what way do we modify the existing law to be more competitive with other states? And if the resulting real estate developments yield defects, then who pays for the repairs? Condo owners through exorbitant private insurance plans? Or should the government be subsidizing these failures?
3.) Where are the examples of fully-functioning condominium complexes receiving lawsuits from greedy tort lawyers for kicks? Is this practice so pervasive that it’s shut down an entire sector of real estate development, or is it more likely other factors are at play?
4.) Where is this example of a bank not financing a mortgage in fear of a construction defect suit? I can’t recall the last time I heard a mortgage request being turned down for any reason at all.
5.) Are real estate developers not also a “special interest” worthy of oversight?
Ken, I apologize again for derailing this discussion, but I still can’t for the life of me understand why the current legislation is preventing developers from building fully-functioning real estate for Colorado consumers. It seems that misinformation and harmful rhetoric continue to dominate the discussion rather than thoughtful comparative analysis.
Ryan, let’s work backwards from a few facts:
When the current Construction Defects Law was passed in 2005, condos were 25 percent of new home housing starts in Colorado. After a steady decline since then, for the past three years, they hover around zero.
Liability insurance premiums for developers and their sub-contractors have more than tripled, as the class action lawsuits have impacted virtually all condo developments in the past decade — leading to a shut-off of premium offers for any price.
The details of the above can be confirmed by figures from the Denver Board of Realtors and the Downtown Denver Partnership, which both track regional and city development data.
Second, let’s look at unusual features of the current Colorado law, compared to most other states:
Housing consumer victims may sue for up to TREBLE damages — three times their actual losses — an incentive to sue for profit.
As few as just TWO homebuyers in a development may join in a class action, with the same, or even “similar” defects.
“Defects” are now defined as anything that does not meet current building codes — which change frequently — such as the exact distance between nails in wallboard, regardless of whether there’s any reasonable “harm” from the presumed “defect.”
Unlike in most other states, HOA class actions in Colorado are now allowed to go straight to court, rather than through the almost-universally-mandated arbitration process first, which allows both homeowners and developers opportunities to resolve settlements before going to court.
Maybe most important, in Colorado a simple majority of an HOA membership BOARD may vote to pursue a class action, without a majority of the total membership’s approval. (The recently-passed Denver Ordinance requires a 50-percent-plus-1 vote MEMBERSHIP approval for a class action — a much harder sell for a lawyer who wants to charge into court.)
Ryan, you can confirm all of the above with the Denver City Attorney’s Office, which drafted the new city ordinance, with the full support of Mayor Hancock, a strong supporter of affordable housing. They will show you how the Denver Ordinance brings the defects claim process back into balance, addressing valid consumer claims without costly legal battles.
Third, Ryan, as the former president of an HOA board of a homeowners’ association involved in a class action lawsuit, I can assure you that homeowners who’ve lived through a class action quickly realize that being trapped in a lawsuit “freezes” every property, making it un-saleable until the suit is settled — which usually takes years. After a title search for a pending sale, the lawsuit must be disclosed to the mortgage lender and the buyer, who back out, avoiding the risks of future special assessments against homeowners.
This is reality, Ryan, and people who know the facts will verify all of this. The so-called “consumer protection” aim of the current state law really benefits no one but the trial lawyers who promote the class actions, that have killed-off a whole segment of the home construction market in Colorado. What kind of “consumer protection law” is one that makes housing so UN-affordable for so many?
Ken,
I have a question about the process used when a tower crane is encased in the middle of a project like this. Obviously, there is a hole in each floor that must be addressed after the crane is removed. What does that entail? Clearly, this won’t be an issue at 1144 Fifteenth and other projects around CBD as those cranes are outside the footprint of the building.
Thanks for all you do on this blog!
Hi Randy,
I don’t really know! Maybe a DenverInfill reader out there with expertise in high-rise construction can answer this question.
Hi Randy,
It’ll be quite the interesting process but here’s an educated guess. A mobile crane will be assembled to take down the top of the crane, yes it can reach that high! Then, the mast will be hydraulically lowered through the building and taken out section by section at the base of the tower crane. Just like when they lift them but the opposite and on the ground level.