New CCD Building Proposed for Auraria

Archive of posts filed under the Architecture category.

New CCD Building Proposed for Auraria

Posted by Ken Schroeppel on April 5, 2010

The Auraria Campus may add yet another prominent building along Speer Boulevard if Community College of Denver students vote next week to approve a special fee for the project.

Known as the Community College of Denver Student Learning and Success Building, the proposed structure at Champa and Speer would provide CCD with significant new classroom space and room for other academic and student programs that the institution is sorely lacking. CCD’s enrollment has skyrocketed to over 12,000 students, yet it continues to occupy just 10 classrooms in Auraria’s South Classroom Building. The institution is so pressed for space that it regularly uses theaters in the Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli for classrooms and has even held classes outdoors.

The new project would join the list of a new generation of buildings for the Downtown campus. In 2005, the new Metro State Parking Facility at the corner of 9th and Auraria Parkway was completed. Then just late last year, the new Auraria Science Building became the first new Auraria building to be located right up against Speer Boulevard to provide a strong urban form along the campus edge with Downtown. Metro State has two proposed buildings in the works: the Metro State Student Success Building, a four-story, 143,000 SF structure slated for the other corner of 9th and Auraria Parkway that should hopefully break ground late 2010; and Metro’s Hotel Learning Center, an 11-story hotel/academic building for the college’s hospitality and tourism program that should start construction in 2011 at the corner of Speer and Auraria Parkway.

CCD’s new structure would occupy a highly visible site at Speer and Champa, just across Speer from the Colorado Convention Center. Currently, the triangular site is a surface parking lot. Here’s a bird’s eye view of the proposed location from Bing Maps:

The proposed building would range from five to seven stories in height and would cost approximately $50 million. The Community College of Denver would cover approximately one-half to three-quarters of the cost, with the balance covered by selling bonds that would be paid back with a special fee tacked on to CCD tuition for the next 15-25 years. CCD students will vote next week (April 12-16) on the fee increase for the project. If it passes, the new building could break ground in 2011 and be completed by 2013.

The project architect is Anderson Mason Dale, the same firm that designed the Auraria Science Building. Here are some preliminary images of the project:

From 13th and Champa (left) and St. Francis Way and 10th on the campus (right):

From Speer and Kalamath/Champa (left) and from near Speer and Stout by the Convention Center (right):

I captured these images from the video below, produced by CCD and available on their home page. The video does an exceptional job of making the case for the new building plus, in addition to the exterior shots above, the video also includes a number of nice renderings of the some of the interior spaces. I may be receiving higher quality versions of these images from CCD. If I do, I’ll swap these out for the better ones.

More news after the student referendum April 12-16. If this project happens, it will represent another important step in the transformation of the Auraria campus to a more urban complement to Downtown Denver… not to mention a critical improvement to the quality of CCD students’ education.

Filed under Architecture, Auraria, Education, Infill.

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Denver 1961

Posted by Ken Schroeppel on March 28, 2010

Today I’d like to share with you the first of several of my favorite photos that show the changes in Downtown Denver over the past fifty years. The photos generally focus on the western (Auraria and Central Platte Valley) side of Downtown.

This first image (used with permission from the personal collection of my friend, Rob Winzurk) is an amazing photo taken by his father in 1961. It is remarkable in that it shows several significant buildings that are no longer with us, all in one view, and in color.

In the center foreground is the University Building, which still stands at the corner of 16th and Champa, along with the Gas & Electric Building at 15th and Champa off to the left. Across Champa from the University Building, the bright red sign of the Downtown Woolworth’s store is clearly visible. Also in this view are four prominent buildings that are gone.

One block to the right of the University Building, at 16th and Curtis, is the Tabor Grand Opera House (linked photos courtesy Denver Public Library Western History Collection). Built in 1881, it was one of the finest and most elaborate opera houses in the country. It featured a 1,500 seat auditorium and a grand atrium lobby capped by a stained-glass rotunda. Next to the Tabor Grand at 16th and Arapahoe is the Post Office and Customs House Building, built in 1885. Both buildings were demolished in 1964, three years after this photo was taken, to make way for the Federal Reserve Bank, completed in 1968, which now occupies the entire block. Here’s a zoom-in of those two buildings:

Directly above and behind the University Building are two buildings at the corner of 15th and Arapahoe: the Mining and Exchange Building on the left, and the Central Bank Building on the right. The handsome Mining and Exchange Building was built in 1891 and featured a statue “The Old Prospector” at the top of its spire. The building was demolished in 1963, two years after this photo was taken. Brooks Tower took its place, and The Old Prospector now rests in the plaza at the entrance to the tower. The Central Bank Building opened in 1911 and featured a beautiful curved brick facade and two-story columns at the corner entrance. The building was a victim of the late-1980s real estate bust. The pathetic story went something like this: The Central Bank Building went into foreclosure and was sold as part of a portfolio of real estate assets to some British firm, which was in financial trouble itself and was involved in a complex lawsuit with a bunch of banks and insurance companies. The British firm eventually decided that one way to help improve its financial position was to “eliminate” some of their troubled assets. Despite valiant efforts by Denver’s historic preservation community to save the Central Bank Building (it was declared a Denver Landmark in 1988), the overseas firm apparently didn’t give a crap about the historic importance of some building in Denver, Colorado, and, in 1989, submitted a demolition permit to the city. At that time, the city could legally delay a demolition permit for only ninety days, during which Mayor Peña pleaded with the firm to spare the building. Ninety days later, in front of a crowd of protesters, a demolition crew smashed the building to bits. Today, the site is a parking lot. Had the Central Bank Building survived however, it would now share its southwest common wall with the parking garage of the new Four Seasons. Here’s a detailed view of those two buildings:

Of course, there are other buildings in this 1961 photo that are no longer around, such as the department store once attached to the D&F Tower, and other nearby buildings that were replaced in the 1970s and 1980s by the Tabor Center, Writer Square, various shiny office towers, and surface parking lots. Behind the D&F Tower, the old Speer Viaduct (also known then as the 13th and 14th Street Viaducts) heads west to interchange with the “new” Valley Highway. Farther in the background, rail yards and industrial buildings cover the Central Platte Valley where the Pepsi Center and Elitch’s now stand and, to the left, the white painted Tivoli Brewery is surrounded by its pre-campus Auraria neighborhood. Finally, Sloans Lake shimmers in the distance, with the silhouette of Lake Middle School clearly visible in front of it and, in between the school and the white boxy industrial building below, is the profile of the one-deck-high Bears Stadium.

In the next photo: Denver 1973.

Filed under Architecture, Central Downtown, History.

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Ralph Carr Judicial Complex – Additional Views

Posted by Ken Schroeppel on March 27, 2010

Back on February 2, I did a blog post about the release of the design of the proposed Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Complex, which included a photograph of a model of the new complex in its Civic Center setting. I’ve recently come across a few additional renderings of the project from the same design presentation on February 2. The image credits go to Fentress Architects.

View from the State Capitol:

View from west of Broadway:

View from the Denver Art Museum:

Finally, here’s a site plan showing pedestrian and vehicular access to the new complex, as well as the timeline for both the Judicial Complex and the related new Colorado History Museum project:

Filed under Architecture, Civic Center, Government & Civic.

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Buyer Found for Historic Hangar 61 in Stapleton

Posted by Jared on March 2, 2010

Hangar 61

It seems that a buyer may have been found for what is certainly the coolest remaining historic structure on the Stapleton redevelopment.

The Stapleton Fellowship Church has posted a blog announcing that its members have voted to move ahead with the purchase of the Hangar 61 building. According to the website, the Christian congregation has been eyeballing the the 9,000-square-foot structure, hyperbolic spaceship-looking shell of concrete and glass at 8800 East 21^st Avenue more since December. Currently the church holds services a few hundred yards away at the Denver School of Science and Technology.

There is little that Hangar 61 is better suited for than an event space, with its streamlined roof arching like a clamshell toward an expansive wall of windows. It’s hard to imagine that the building was ever intended as an airplane hanger. It’s even more impressive considering how deteriorated the structure was before state and local preservationists stepped in to save it.

Hangar 61 in 1959

In 2004, I remember sitting in on a meeting of the Denver Planning Board for a reason I can no longer remember. The subject of Hangar 61 came up on the agenda and this guy named David Walter stepped up to the microphone and started talking about why the building needed to be saved from demolition during the crusade to convert the old Stapleton Airport into an upscale, mixed-use dreamscape. Walter is a local artist who co-founded Ironton Studios and Gallery. Walter described how Hangar 61 was built in 1959 by the Boettcher family-owned Ideal Cement Company to house its Fairchild F-27 turbo-prop airliner. The unique structure was designed by Fisher, Fisher, and Davis, and engineered by renowned concrete-shell engineer Milo Ketchum. Plus it just looked cool.

But it had also been vacant for more than a decade prior. It would cost hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to secure the 160-foot, diamond shape concrete arch (impressively engineered without center supports) and necessary environmental clean-up. Plus there was a complex tangle of ownership between the city and private development entities.

In 2004, Hangar 61 faced demolition

Board members voted to kick the issue to the city’s Landmark Preservation Commission. Eventually the statewide group Colorado Preservation, Inc. stepped up with a $200,000 grant to purchase the building and get the rehab process started. Then, last spring, developer Larry Nelson bought the building with the goal of taking it to market.

Nelson’s “620 Corp Inc. has spent about $1.3 million on the project, including constructing a parking lot and adding the frame for a new entryway,” arts critic Mary Voelz Chandler reported for the Rocky Mountain News in last January. “He estimates another $300,000 to $400,000 will be necessary to bring the hangar up to the point at which someone can lease or buy it to use as office space.”

I wasn’t able to get a hold of Nelson or the church, so no word yet on the sale price or if the deal has been finalized.

Filed under Architecture, Denver Neighborhoods, Historic Preservation, Urbanism.

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#7: Downtown Denver Historic District

Posted by Ken Schroeppel on January 22, 2010

If pressed to name an historic district in Downtown Denver, I’d estimate that 98% of Denverites would cite Lower Downtown. In the 22 years since it was designated as an official Denver Historic District, LoDo has transcended from a seedy skid row of boarded-up buildings into one of the largest preserved Victorian-era commercial districts and coolest mixed-use neighborhoods in the country. Its fame is well-deserved. But less well known yet just as important is Downtown’s other historic district, the Downtown Denver Historic District, #7 in our countdown of Denver’s Top 10 Urbanism Achievements of the Aughts.

Unlike the Lower Downtown Historic District, which has relatively simple and straightforward boundaries, the Downtown Denver Historic District doesn’t really have any boundaries at all. The DDHD, designated by the city in 2000, consists of 43 buildings located on 18 different blocks throughout the Central Business District. About half of the DDHD’s buildings are also designated Denver Historic Landmark Structures, but the creation of the DDHD provides additional protection and control to ensure that these buildings will be around for a long, long time.

It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of the buildings in the DDHD to the integrity of Downtown Denver and to the soul of our city. Eleven of the buildings front the 16th Street Mall, and eleven more front 17th Street. These buildings are the core of Downtown. Their distinguished architecture, their impressive yet approachable scale, the craftsmanship and pride that went into them, gave credibility to a fledgling city back then, and give us today an understanding of our heritage as a city. Can you imagine Denver without the D&F Tower, the Brown Palace Hotel, or the Equitable Building? The fact that these buildings are scattered across a relative large area, from Tremont to Lawrence and 14th to 18th, means that you’re never more than a block or two from a building that serves as an historic anchor amid a sea of modernism and surface parking lots.

We lost a lot of great buildings during the second half of the 20th century, but the formation of the Downtown Denver Historic District in 2000 was a partial redemption and an important achievement in Denver’s evolving urbanism.

Filed under Architecture, Central Downtown, Historic Preservation, Upper Downtown.

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Clyfford Still Museum Groundbreaking

Posted by Ken Schroeppel on December 30, 2009

Two weeks ago, the official groundbreaking ceremony was held on the new Clyfford Still Museum in Denver’s Civic Center district. The $29 million museum is planned for the southeast corner of W. 13th Avenue and Bannock Street on the same block as the Denver Art Museum’s Frederick Hamilton building. The Clyfford Still Museum’s presence in Denver is not only a major coup for the city, but its location in Civic Center will further enhance that district’s cultural and architectural appeal.

The ceremony on December 14 involved not so much the breaking of ground, but more the breaking of old walls. Located on the museum site were a couple of small buildings that were ceremoniously wrecked while fireworks went off to launch the museum’s construction phase. I was unable to attend the event, but I finally had a chance to swing by the site the other day. The old buildings are totally gone and the site awaits excavation.

The buildings that were demolished are the ones closest to the corner of 13th and Bannock in the bird’s eye photo (left) of the site from Bing maps. On the right is a picture of the site I took a few days ago:

For a short video clip of the ceremony, check out this website.

The new 30,000 square foot building will be complete in 2011. Renderings of the new museum structure are available here. Finally, here’s an informative press release from the museum that discusses the building’s exterior and interior design. Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture is the designer.

Having another new museum in the Civic Center/Golden Triangle area is absolutely exciting. But our museum-packed cultural district is still surrounded by ugly surface parking lots that have defied development for several decades, despite their artsy neighbors. As I’ve explained before in a previous post, part of the problem with the ubiquitous parking lots around there is that most of the lots are actually comprised of numerous small parcels owned by different property owners, which makes land assemblage in the area virtually impossible. I’ve heard reports that there is a mid-rise apartment project being planned for around 12th and Cherokee, which is good news, but really… when are we going to do something to break the parking lot log-jam in the Golden Triangle? Something to think about while we celebrate the start of construction for yet another new museum in Downtown Denver.

Filed under Architecture, Arts & Culture, Civic Center, Golden Triangle, Infill, Parking.

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