Lower Highland’s booming Platte Street is set to receive another new infill development to add to its pedestrian-oriented mix of historic and contemporary buildings.
Platte Fifteen is a proposed five-story, 160,000 square foot project planned for the corner of 15th and Platte Street. Currently, about three-quarters of the one-acre site is covered by a surface parking lot, with the balance occupied by a 20,000 square foot building holding Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers on the ground floor and Confluence Kayaks in the basement. Below is a Google Earth aerial showing the site location:
The Platte Fifteen project is being developed by Crescent Real Estate and MDC Property Services with Legend Partners handling the retail leasing and Newmark Grubb Knight Frank managing the leasing of the office space. Denver-based OZ Architecture is designing the project. Thank you to everyone at OZ for providing the excellent images and assistance!
Platte Fifteen includes approximately 14,000 square feet of retail on the ground floor and around 135,000 square feet of office space on the upper four levels. Courtesy of OZ Architecture, let’s start with this overview rendering of the project showing the Platte Street (left) and 15th Street (right) corner:
The ground-floor retail spaces and building entry along 15th Street at the corner are set back by almost 20 feet with a covered paseo to provide extra room for pedestrians:
As this ground-floor diagram shows, the project features retail spaces facing both 15th and Platte streets. The development includes a few ground-level parking spaces plus two underground parking levels with a total of 236 automobile and 74 bicycle parking spaces. The vehicle entry is along Platte Street approximately where the current parking lot driveway is located:
View of the building lobby:
The four office levels will include about 10,000 square feet of outdoor space including terraces along Platte Street and a rooftop deck along 15th Street with great views of Downtown Denver:
Here is a building stacking diagram for the 15th Street elevation:
One very cool aspect of this project will be its use of Cross Laminated Timber. Platte Fifteen will be the first large-scale office building in Denver to be built using this construction technique that brings the warmth and aesthetics of large timber beams common in historic buildings into a modern open floor plan environment in a high-tech, sustainable way.
Here’s one more overview rendering with Platte Street in the foreground and 15th Street on the right:
Through a contextually scaled building with a modern glass and brick design and pedestrian-friendly ground-floor uses, Platte Fifteen will nicely anchor an important corner in Lower Highland and increase the vitality of what is already one of Downtown Denver’s most appealing and walkable mixed-use districts.
Construction should begin in 2017 with completion scheduled for late 2018.
2016-06-10 Edit: Gross building square footage revised to 160,000 SF per new information received from the developer.
Will Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers be one of the retail tenants in the new building? I hope so. I work near 15th and Platte and I’ve always found that VCNG convenient and useful.
No, that store will be moving into the RINO area.
Great design OZ, love the look of this project. Wish they didn’t have to tear down Vitamin Cottage tho…
I think I have simple tastes and when done right simple is awesome. Love this project.
Overall not a bad project and will tie in well with what’s existing and going up on Platte. The site has always seemed like it was underdeveloped for the area. Even though this really has nothing to do with the post I am somewhat curious what will happen with the Natural Grocers and Confluence Kayaks. I hate seeing neighborhood-serving businesses like these leave due to larger newer developments taking over. The site isn’t just a parking lot like we love seeing go away. Hopefully the NG, should they choose not to move back in, will decide to remain in the LoHi area and possibly even relocate a little further to the west across the highway. Might serve them well. Especially with the new Whole Foods opening near Union Station next year.
This looks like a great building at the right scale for the neighborhood. It doesn’t look like the way the retail space is set-up that Natural Grocers will be able to stay, which is somewhat of a shame. Although in theory, the new Whole Foods will probably be open by the time this project is breaking ground so it may somewhat of a moot point. Either way, Oz is doing some really nice work lately and this should be a nice addition to the area.
I like this building. I think its is attractive and will fit in nicely with the neighborhood. But once again, I’m saddened to see an interesting old building be torn down. It would have been a much more interesting development if they could have incorporated the existing building into the new one. Another lost opportunity with absolutely no imagination.
I’m not sure this site celebrating the loss of two important retailers to fill a corner that actually had a building on it is a good thing. Sure it is a nice building but the loss of a grocery store in an area that has been maligned for the lack of them, regardless of whole foods, is a shame.
We’re not celebrating the loss of those retailers. Ultimately, however, the proposed project is a better use of the site than what is currently there and, who knows, those retailers may find a new site elsewhere in the neighborhood.
lovely project. lots of thought put into it. a retailer like urban outfitters or something similar would do very well on the ground floor space.
on a side note, i notice that the Elitch Gardens observation tower seems to be leaning precariously in the upper floor rendering. I wonder if Kroenke has any plans to redevelop the property now that he owns it and the Pepsi Center property. Would think you could fit a ton of people and buildings onto the prime riverfront property that, as of now, only generates revenue in the summer…
From what I’ve heard there are long term plans for Elitch Gardens to be redeveloped. I don’t think we’ll see it in the next 2-3 years, but think we’ll probably see it in the next cycle after that.
Another glass square. Who needs one? Samples show Brother’s Bar missing. This will be a great loss
to Denver. But who cares. Certainly not Denver “Planning?”
Architects typically remove from a rendering any building that would block the view of the new building. My Brother’s Bar isn’t part of this project.
Denver “planning” doesn’t have much say over this or any development happening. Property owners may do what they want with their properties, as long as it is allowed within the zoning. This site is clearly underutilized for the surrounding context; it’s zoned for 5-story mixed use, so the property owner/developer is capitalizing on the market and the available unused development potential on the site. The Denver Planning Office cannot stop this or any development if the proposed development is a use by right and the design meets the required building codes.
Who commands the zoning?
The current zoning was approved by Denver City Council back in 2010 when they rezoned the whole city to be consistent with Blueprint Denver and its Areas of Change and Areas of Stability. Some areas were upzoned, some downzoned, and generally all zones were redone under a “form” and “context” approach. During the five years it took to develop the new zoning code and map, the city held over 1000 public meetings to engage the neighborhoods in what the zoning should be for the blocks and parcels in each area. In the case of Platte Street, since the existing historic buildings are generally 3-4 stories in the 50 foot-tall range, that’s what was set as the new zoning for the street (C-MX-5), which is why the recent new projects on Platte–Galvanize 2.0, The Lab on Platte, Riverview at 1700 Platte, 1615 Platte, and now Platte Fifteen–all have the same height and scale of 4-5 floors consistent with the street’s historic form and context.
When a developer goes to the planning office with a new project, Planning reviews the project’s design for consistency to the current zoning (use, height, setbacks, parking, etc.) and, as long as the proposed design meets these requirements (plus obviously things like building/construction codes), then they must approve the project. Details like facade design and expression, colors, materials, are generally not covered by zoning.
Any rezonings must be approved by Denver City Council.
I hope that helps!
I’m all for density, but I’m not sure we should be cheering the loss of every parking lot if it comes at the expense of a historic brick warehouse and neighborhood grocery. I’m afraid platte st is losing a lot of its historic charm but I guess that’s the price to pay for progress 🙁
This development would be more at home in CCN.
I agree. I like the brick warehouse on the site, and I think it is too bad that it is being sacrificed.
The Natural Grocers building never struck me as historic and windowless. The building has always been unwelcoming. This new building will change that. I always walk over for a few items a few times a month before getting on the W line to head home. That way I don’t have to drive anywhere for just 1-5 items I need for the home. But with the new Whole Foods opening I wouldn’t walk over anymore by this time the store is demolished. I do think the Natural Grocers store could move to the other side of the highway and serve the Highlands area. It would be perfect.
Natural Grocers is putting in a location in the River North area. Seems like a decent trade-off for them.
I did hear several months back that a Natural Grocers was going in near the light rail stop on 38th and Blake. It all makes sense now.
it is unfortunate that vitamin cottage blocked off all the large windows. when it was a pool hall it was a great building with nice big windows as I recall
Great project. Platte Street is going to be a great retail/restaurant/business street. I still remember going to Paris on the Platte in the early 1990s when it was about the only thing there and nothing but abandoned fields of urban wasteland and debris between the coffee shop and Union Station. In the 25 years since (mostly over the past 10 years) a new city has been built in that space.
A little bittersweet to see long-time tenets Natural Grocers and Confluence Kayaks go, but this ultimately is a better utilization of such a prominent site.
I like the building by OZ too. Good scale, simple form, simple materials, done well. They did a good job addressing the entry – i like the street presence.
Headnods upon headnods. Downtown already has enough mid/lowrise blocky fill-in submodern. Give me Corinthian columns over the square square everywhere a right angle this and that. Even a Liebskind would do.