Heading back to Central Downtown Denver, it’s time to check in at 999 17th Street as significant progress has been made. This is a 28-story, 360-unit apartment building at 18th and Curtis, along with a 9-story office building at 17th and Curtis.
First let’s start with our newly found vantage point. The apartment building, 1776 Curtis, is quickly going vertical now that the podium is complete.
As mentioned above, the podium has topped out and the apartment tower is now 11-stories vertical. The blank wall in the first photo will eventually be covered by the office building component.
You probably noticed a hint of the building’s facade in the previous photos. Here is a closer look. Beige and grey precast panels will be used for the apartment tower. Click here for a rendering refresher.
The apartment tower has 17 more floors to go eventually making a significant impact to this area of Downtown Denver.
There are two things I am happy about this this project.
1.) It’s getting rid of a parking lot.
2.) It’s buried in the CBD so that ugly beige doesn’t stand out in the skyline. 🙂
Here’s to hoping the office component is a bit better architecturally.
Does anyone know if this building is following the trend of convertible parking space (to office space)? The ramps look pretty level and have big enough gaps for windows so I was just curious and hadn’t seen anything in previous posts.
As far as I know, this is all going to be dedicated parking for the time being. There are no plans to use it for anything else at the moment.
The skin on this complex, so far, is terribly disappointing. It looks cheap. Looking over my shoulder my wife said that it looked like an old building that was being demolished rather than a new building under construction.
Agreed. Not a good street-level look.
I just can’t fathom how this kind of trash is allowed. It looks like a Hampton Inn cross bred with a storage shed. WTF!?!?! How can we prevent this from happening?
This building makes me really appreciate all the bland, mediocre buildings built in the past 5 years that at least put forth a half-ass effort to provide some depth, detailing or interesting materials. This thing is right up there with the Aloft Hotel on 15th. I hold out very little hope for the office portion. What really burns is that this was one of the best remaining sites along 17th Ave.
Ditto. They threw away an opportunity to build something monumental. Instead, we got a low-risk disappointment.
It looks like it’s made of cardboard. :/
People will complain that it looks dated before it is built. Which should keep the rent level at a fairly decent price for being new and the location. Had they built a super fancy building, the rent prices would be through the roof. Either way, people will complain. Be happy that this tower is even going up in the heart of the city. 20 years ago, this would have been a dream.
I would say let’s hold off on criticizing this one too much until we see the finished product, especially considering there currently is no completed street-level retail space: this is still primarily a precast. Sure it would have been nice if the materials used were still brick as seen in early renderings, however the office portion (at least the final renderings of it) will look awesome and I’m cautiously optimistic for the final version of the apartment portion when the street-level is finished.
If I had to gripe about anything on this project, it’s that the developer/architect removed those 3 light cascades over the parking structure… I feel like that was a low risk addition to make this a more aesthetically pleasing development right in the heart of downtown and also I feel as though little additions like that would make other parts of the city – outside of the 16th st mall – more attractive and vibrant. I seriously doubt the added cost for putting those in would have been much of a burden to the developer or the management company, and now I fear we’ll either see a blank parking podium or they’ll try to cover it up with a cheap advertisement/banner of some sort. If the developer or management company ever reads these comments, PLEASE ADD THE LIGHT CASCADES BACK IN!
This has got to be the most boring facade curtain wall built since the early 70’s and there’s going to be 28 stories of this?!! What a disappointment to downtown Denver. No fancy glass on the southwest commercial end will ever make up for the bland disappointment of this major component of the building. Based on the cost of the property and the building itself, a more interesting facade would have been a drop in the bucket. Look at any prominent city in the world, it’s the architecture and planning that make them standout and reflect the sophistication of its citizens. This ain’t helpin Denver!