As Cherry Creek North continues to boom, there are projects under-construction and coming online east of Steele Street as well. East 1st Avenue between Steele and Colorado Boulevard contains a very wide road with not a whole lot along it. However, this is beginning to change. Recently, UC Health announced that they are planning to build a new health care center up on East 1st Avenue and Cook Street, two blocks east of Coda.
Let’s start out with an aerial map with the project site outlined. Click on the image to get the full picture with more of the surrounding neighborhood.
According to UC Health, “Providers at the new building will offer primary and advanced care, including cancer care, women’s care, additional specialties, state-of-the-art imaging, and an outpatient surgery center.” This new 88,000 square foot building, designed by Davis Partnership Architects, will rise five-stories and be built by Swinerton Builders. Here are two renderings courtesy of UC Health.
As you probably observed with the aerial above, there are existing structures that will be demolished to make way for this project. The structures are a dated strip mall and an attached two-story building. Here is the site as of this last weekend.
Once demolition is complete, work will begin on the four-story underground parking garage, providing 257 parking spaces. This will result in one of the largest parking ratios in the entire Cherry Creek neighborhood. Construction is expected to begin in July and wrap up late 2018.
The mid-century building was once a “Big Top” store. There are a couple other buildings like this left in Denver but those of us who are natives remember the iconic buildings around town.
As to the parking ratio being “excessive”, I strongly disagree. This building will see a lot of patients being transported to the facility via car as I am sure they would not want to be taking public transit or walking due to their illness.
I’ve always enjoyed the whimsical roof line of this old dry cleaner. But that’s okay. Change is good.
Fortunately there are still a handful of the googie Big Top buildings around town but it would be horrendous to lose them all to new development. It would be cool if they moved one to the Lakewood history center.
Actually, it would make an awesome picnic shelter in a park.
Is this building a part of the University of Colorado system? If not, UC is a misleading name that I think is a tad dishonest.
It is associated with UC Medical School. From press release:
Aurora, Colo. (Feb. 16, 2017) – Patients throughout Cherry Creek and metro Denver will soon have access to additional health care options, close to home, at UCHealth’s new health center at the intersection of First Avenue and Cook Street in Denver. Providers at the new building will offer primary and advanced care, including cancer care, women’s care, additional specialties, state-of-the-art imaging, and an outpatient surgery center.
“This new health center exemplifies UCHealth’s vision for helping people live extraordinary lives by providing advanced care, close to home,” said Elizabeth Concordia, president and CEO of UCHealth. “We are focused on using innovation and technology in medicine to ensure both the best outcomes for our patients and also to improve the experience and service we provide.”
Expert physicians from the University of Colorado School of Medicine will provide many of the services at the new health center including access to clinical trials and nationally recognized specialists.
“As the only academic medical center in the region, University of Colorado Hospital can provide advanced treatments found nowhere else in our region,” said University of Colorado Hospital President and CEO Will Cook. “However, patients shouldn’t have to drive to Aurora for every appointment. This new location will provide many of these services in a more convenient location
It’s interesting that CU abandoned it’s intown campus on Colorado Blvd. a few years for a location in Aurora. Much of that campus was of fairly new construction. Now they are turning around building new construction less than a mile from their old campus to provide a “convenient location” so patients don’t “have to drive to Aurora for every appointment.” Somethings wrong with this picture.
CU Medical School in the desolate patch of Aurora was a victim of Denver NIMBYism. Though I would loved for CU medical to stay in Denver, the real sad part to me was the school ended up on East Colfax.
Ed,
I agree. Then Mayor Webb gave in to the neighbors around CU Health Sciences and forced CU to move by not allowing any further expansion of the campus. It is all about money in the end.
Developers and construction companies made a bundle on the campus moving to Aurora. Denver lost the jobs and tax revenue. Go figure!
Ditto for the Denver Jail and even for DIA. I still say they could have just as easily added a new runway at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal (yeah, concrete over polluted soil) and saved a billion dollars.
Now the new Denver Jail is running out of space and they are talking about expanding the facility in Stapleton.
The Denver media (TV and print) just sit there and let all this happen due to the Democrat Establishment running Denver.
Very sad!
You could say that DIA was built because NIMBYism, but that would not be quite accurate. It was very unwise for the city to allow residential neighborhoods to develop that close to Stapleton airport. However, DIA and Stapleton, the neighborhood, are within the city limits and so if the city expands the jail there, it is still within the city. Now, I had also heard that CU Health Sciences looked at several locations all within Denver, even one in Stapleton (?), but for some reason those other locations were not quite right.
I figured this was going to be one of the next structures to go, with the increased density in the area and the value of land. I can’t say I’m sorry to see it go, and I’m actually happy to see a project of this nature for the neighborhood.
The attitude some people have toward parking and being anti-car… I am ALL for expanding mass transit. I am desperately hoping this city starts planning *something* soon to increase accessibility between downtown and CC. The traffic is already dense, and the increased residential and commercial activity to come has this area screaming for a better RTD linkage. But to complain about parking for a facility that most people will surely want to access via car?
On top of that, something has to be done soon with the traffic flow on 1st Avenue. There is one light and pedestrian crosswalk way up on Garfield and 1st and then nothing until you hit Steele and 1st. Crossing 1st on foot during the business day is a harrowing experience to say the least. I hope they consider adding an additional light/crossing somewhere between the two, to be honest. You now have more residential going in with the Alexan on Cook, this huge upcoming medical facility, and it’s already incredibly dense to begin with in this area.