A new five-story apartment community, Alexan LoHi, is planned for the corner of West 32nd Avenue and Tejon Street by Trammell Crow Residential.
The site is currently occupied by Dickinson Plaza, a pair of attached neighborhood commercial buildings owned by the Dickinson family since 1900. Henry Dickinson sold the property to Trammell Crow Residential in January 2016 for $6.85 million. In addition to the two commercial buildings, a duplex and a couple of other small structures are also situated on the parcel, which measures approximately 35,500 square feet in area. About half of the parcel is vacant land or surface parking. The parcel is zoned C-MX-5 (C = Urban Center Neighborhood Context, MX = Mixed-Use, 5 = five stories maximum), which is described in the Denver Zoning Code as applicable to “areas or intersections served primarily by collector or arterial streets where a building scale of 1 to 5 stories is desired.”
Below is an aerial image with the site outlined, followed by several photos of the existing structures:
On the left, view looking northwest at the Dickinson Plaza property; on the right, underutilized center part of the Tejon side of the parcel:
On the left, view of the corner looking north along Tejon; on the right, close up of the two-story section of the plaza at the far western edge of the property along 32nd:
According to city records and Trammell Crow Residential, the new Alexan LoHi will have 106 units and 133 parking spaces in a five-story structure, with the average unit size coming in around 787 square feet. The ground floor will include approximately 10,000 square feet of retail space. The following high-resolution renderings are courtesy of the project architect, Denver-based Johnson Nathan Strohe.
Corner view:
Tejon side of the project with parking garage entry:
Trammell Crow Residential plans to begin construction in July 2016 with completion expected in December 2017.
Nice. While the architecture is very similar and not super exciting to all of other Alexan projects around the city, I’m glad to see a development like this going into a prime corner.
My biggest regret about this development, besides the rather bland architecture compared to what will be replaced, is that the retail/restaurants that are currently there have little place to go. When the city did the citywide rezone in 2010, parcels were, for the most part, zoned for what was there and not necessarily what may happen there. There is little room for expansion of the commercial/mixed-use corridor that exists in places like 32nd Ave. That’s what happened historically: a building would get sold/replaced and the shops and restaurants would move to new spaces or take over formally residential spaces along the same corridor. in 2010, those residential areas along commercial corridors should’ve been rezoned to residential mixed-areas to allow for extension of the existing commercial properties without a difficult, problematic rezoning.
On another note: I am getting really tired of white stucco and/or EIFS.
I predict that small businesses will be not occupy this space. Instead, some generic chain restaurant. Not a good development.
This project makes me upset. They should have tried to save some part of the historic building – perhaps the two-story section? Another character-less modern brutalist structure. There is no way to replace the charm of older buildings (see LoDo & Union Station).
Do you even know what brutalism is?
Brutalism is a very specific architectural style/movement, not just some generic term to throw around at new building that you don’t like.
While we can debate this building’s architectural merits (or lack there of), calling it brutalist is entierly off-base.
1900s development replaced by another cookie cutter apartment building with no character. Not a fan
Like others, I’m disappointed with the cookie cutter architecture of the proposed development, but more than that, I’m a bit saddened that another structure prominent in my memory of growing up on the Northside will be hitting the rubbish heap. Many years ago, the corner unit lately occupied by Laughing Latte housed an ice cream shop, The Creamery, I loved stopping there for a chocolate malt after mass at St. Pat’s.
Very sad – The city planning oversight/insight/vision feels no attachment any of the distinct spots in town. Hancock and Buchanan are not working for the Denver I want.
This project is being built under the zoning on the site adopted by the Denver City Council in 2010 when neither Hancock nor Buchanan were in their current positions—so I don’t understand your point.
Soon there will be no century old brick buildings left because they will all be replaced with “modernist” garbage. This is just another example of Denver’s complete disregard for old buildings and complete lack of imagination when it comes to adaptive reuse.
This development could have been really interesting and unique if they would save the existing buildings and do some actual INFILL by building the apartment building behind where the surface parking lot area is. Would have been a completely different design than the generic box of ugly apartments that are on every other street corner in Denver. Completely disappointing development.
Soon there will be no century old brick buildings left because they will all be replaced with “modernist” garbage. This is just another example of Denver’s complete disregard for old buildings and complete lack of imagination when it comes to adaptive reuse.
This development could have been really interesting and unique if they would save the existing buildings and do some actual INFILL by building the apartment building behind where the surface parking lot area is. Would have been a completely different design than the generic box of ugly apartments that are on every other street corner in Denver. Completely disappointing development.
Just here to chime in that it’s a bummer that at least much of the current facade couldn’t have been incorporated in design of the new building, allowing a little of the history/character of the neighborhood to remain on such a prominent corner.
What a disappointing development, that is clearly more concerned with making money than preserving any neighborhood character or even providing anything contributing in terms of the new proposed architecture. It would be great if the Historic Preservation Society required that the existing structures be incorporated into the new construction, which would also be a welcome change to Alexan’s other projects and their generally bland and architecturally insensitive style.
Because LoHi needs more overpriced cookie cutter apartments..
LoHi does need more cookie cutter apartments that, while a higher price threshold then a building that hasn’t been updated in 40 years, is relatively affordable compared to other buildings going up in Union Station, Cherry Creek, etc. There are roughly 15,000 people moving into Denver proper each year and they need somewhere to live.
These buildings aren’t being built to remain empty, they’re being built because 15,000 new people per year are filling them up. If you don’t like that, then find someway to make Denver less attractive.
This is really unfortunate and just shows the absolute greed that drives Denver now. I mean…the developer could have just gone smaller with the vacant lot in the back and left the rest alone. Instead the Dickenson family gets a cool $6.8 million and nine local businesses are displaced. They didn’t even give the businesses any rights or opportunity to rent in the new building…I agree it’ll likely be some kind of corporate or local chains…overpriced restaurants.
And the architecture sucks too…sad all around.
What a shame!
Personally I’d rather see a high rise behind this corner building than for them to tear it down. The older brick has much more historic class to it than ‘anything’ you could replace it with. This doesn’t qualify as ‘infill’ but a ‘scrape.’ Looks like more of the same wall streeter style mentality development. YAY for the banks and a couple investors at the price of community character.
How about an interview with some of the architects and funders behind all this uninspired build? What really is the thinking or decision making process to give the Denver built environment such drivel?