Happy first day of Summer readers! Back by popular demand, we are going to start the week and season off with a tower crane census. There was a lot of crane action going on over the weekend so this will be a fun census. All of the tower crane photos, with the exception of one, were taken on Saturday for an accurate count; even though the count is going to be tricky.

This census is for tower cranes only. The self erecting cranes (cranes without a ladder mast or cab) on smaller builds are not counted.

Why tricky? Let’s start out with tower crane number zero. As I got down to the Union Station neighborhood, workers were taking down the crane at Union Tower West. As much as I would love to count this, this crane has been completely taken down.

2016-06-19_TowerCranes-09 2016-06-19_TowerCranes-03

Let’s move the count in a positive direction. One and Two belong to Pivot.

2016-06-19_TowerCranes-23 2016-06-19_TowerCranes-10

Three and Four are for 1709 Chestnut. The second tower crane for this project wasn’t up on Saturday but it should be complete today.

2016-06-19_TowerCranes-05 2016-06-19_TowerCranes-08

Tower crane number Five belongs to the 16th and Wewatta Hotel and Office Complex.

2016-06-19_TowerCranes-12 2016-06-19_TowerCranes-11

The Confluence offers tower cranes Six and Seven. As a bonus, they were jumping the south tower crane over the weekend.

2016-06-19_TowerCranes-06 2016-06-19_TowerCranes-22

Number Eight belongs to 28th and Vallejo and, since this is a Central Denver census, Alexan West Highlands brings number Nine to the table.

2016-06-19_TowerCranes-07 2016-06-19_TowerCranes-20

I forgot the memory card for my other camera before I went up to take this photo so here is number Ten, belonging to Modera River North, in cell-phone-picture fashion.

2016-06-19_TowerCranes-19

I said out loud, “No! What are you doing? I have a census to do…” as I saw what was going on at Dairy Block. A tower crane taking down another tower crane is not a sight we see everyday. Unfortunately, I can only count one for Dairy Block bringing the total up to Eleven.

2016-06-19_TowerCranes-04

Twelve and Thirteen, belonging to 999 17th Street, are nicely tucked away in Central Downtown.

2016-06-19_TowerCranes-13 2016-06-19_TowerCranes-14

1144 Fifteenth claims number Fifteen with Le Meridien / AC bringing the number up to Sixteen. If you look closely in the first photo, you can see the south tower crane for The Confluence continuing to jump itself.

2016-06-19_TowerCranes-15 2016-06-19_TowerCranes-17

Seventeen belongs to the rare luffing jib over at SkyHouse. I’m sure number Eighteen, at Alexan Uptown, will be taken down very soon.

2016-06-19_TowerCranes-18 2016-06-19_TowerCranes-02

Number Nineteen is working hard at Eviva Cherokee with Twenty and Twenty-One helping build the twin 30-story Country Club Towers.

2016-06-19_TowerCranes-21 2016-06-19_TowerCranes-01

Last but not least, Twenty-Two stands tall above the Alexan Cherry Creek site. After a five hour tower-crane-spotting hike, I forgot to take a current picture of this one but trust me, it’s still there.

2016_01_24_AlexanCherryCreek-03

As I was editing these photos last night, my wife nicely told me that she spotted one for Tennyson Place in Berkeley last month. After reviewing her phone picture footage, that brings our final total to Twenty-Three. Sorry, I don’t have a current photo of this one.

That’s a lot of tower cranes and about the peak number we are going to see this year. Our previous census, back in 2013, featured ten tower cranes with around three up in Cherry Creek at the time. 2016 has significantly more construction activity as the boom keeps on rolling!