Trammell Crow Residential, developer of the Alexan brand of apartment communities, is planning another project in Downtown Denver, this time at 20th and California streets in the Arapahoe Square district. Known as Alexan 20th Street Station, the development will cover the entire half block along California Street between 20th and 21st streets, a 50,068-square foot parcel.
We’ve outlined the project site on the Google Earth image below:
As this aerial photo clearly illustrates, this project will fill a sizable hole in downtown Denver’s biggest parking crater. Fortunately, several of the other undeveloped sites in this sea of asphalt have projects proposed on them, including Renaissance Downtown, 21st and Welton, and even another Trammell Crow Residential project, Alexan Arapahoe Square. The “20th Street Station” part of the project name references RTD’s 20th and Welton light rail station, located 200 feet from the development site.
Alexan 20th Street Station will consist of a 12-story building that rises 144 feet in height and contains 354 residential units. The average apartment size will be 783 square feet. A total of 393 automobile parking spaces is planned, for a parking space/unit ratio of 1.11.
The following rendering is courtesy of our friends at Kephart, the project architect, showing the California Street side of the building with 20th Street on the right. While this rendering does represent the most recent version of the project’s design, some minor changes may occur given that the development is still under review by the city. This is a very high-resolution image, so click/expand for the full effect!
According to Trammell Crow Residential’s website, this project is expected to get started later this year and be complete by fall 2018.
While this latest rendering is an improvement over the previous one that I saw, I am hoping, or wish, that the city would/could apply the Arapahoe Square Design Guidelines to this project. The design of the project would be greatly improved and, if the new zoning could apply, the developer could go higher since they are already screening the above-ground parking with other uses.
I so agree, Jerry! What’s the timeline on those standards being formally adopted?
It reminds me of the Oasis of the Seas cruiseliner I took to tour the Caribbean.
Boom… that will take a very ugly parking lot out of the picture. If Arapahoe Square can continue to put 354 residential units on all these half blocks, then this area of town will soon be hopping with activity. I’d like to see Welton eventually packed with housing options, which probably won’t be too far off.
From an urban design standpoint I love it.
As a shcematic design, it’s fine. (The angled glass feels foreign, but whatever).
My main concern it how piss poor Kephart’s last project turned out (Via @ 8th & Lincoln).
That project showed a poor understanding of materials and detailing (ya know, architecture).
I just hope that this one is better executed…
From an urban design perspective, I am going to say that I do not love it – at least as it is presented here. An early rendering, I know, but if that continuous brick wall along California gets built the way it appears in this drawing, that would be a blatant failure on the City’s part. And also, the designers should know better than that. The building is fine, if a little safe. I am not a big fan of the tower on top of a plinth design approach – as in, why do the top 8 stories have to be a totally different design language than the bottom three stories. A very common approach these days!
Likely because of construction type. My guess is that similar to other recent TCR projects this is a steel stud framing system on top of X levels of concrete podium. In this case it looks like 8 over 3 (or 4 if this is really 12 story, I count 11). In any event, these structural steel systems like Infinity or Prescient are increasingly being used in these mid rise locations pretty good success so far. They help bridge the gap between wood frame and 20-story traditional concrete and steel construction.
This building fronts on Broadway. Is there any retail? Restaurants? Bars? Coffee shops?