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Archive of posts filed under the Brownfield category.

La Alma / Lincoln Park: South Lincoln Redevelopment Update

Posted by  on February 13, 2013

Today we are heading over to the La Alma / Lincoln Park neighborhood to check in on the South Lincoln Redevelopment. Back in May of 2011, the Denver Housing Authority gained funding for this redevelopment project and since then, there hasn’t been a break in construction.

First stop on our South Lincoln Redevelopment tour, I am going to give you a quick refresher on the completed 1099 Osage project; an 8-story senior housing building. I highlighted it on our handy map so you can get a feel for its location in entire redevelopment.

Back in 2011 and 2012, I did a bunch of updates on just 1099 Osage. Since then, multiple phases have kicked off hence why I am now covering this redevelopment as a whole. Here is a current picture of 1099 Osage. If you want a more in depth look at the building, it can be found here.

Next, we will be looking at Phase II which includes the 81-unit ‘Mariposa Apartments’ (highlighted on our map).

Wood framing is nearly complete on these buildings and installation of the glass has begun. These two buildings alone are a drastic improvement over the existing structures on site. We’ll check back in a couple months to see what the facade is going to be comprised of.

 

 

Last but not least, construction for Phase III has commenced and staging for Phase IV has begun.

As you can see, the elevator core with a little bit of wood framing is all the progress seen so far with this phase. Still, this is a great sign of progress!

The South Lincoln redevelopment is a huge and very exciting project for the La Alma / Lincoln Park neighborhood. I was very surprised when I saw how much was actually under construction. I also had the opportunity to talk to a couple insiders. It looks like the redevelopment going to keep trekking forward through all six phases!

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Filed under Brownfield, Infill, La Alma Lincoln Park, Residential.
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Re-Envisioning the Denver Coliseum

Posted by  on May 6, 2010

DenverInfill had the privilege to partner this year with NAIOP-Colorado to promote the Rocky Mountain Real Estate Challenge, the annual high-profile competition between the real estate programs at the University of Colorado and the University of Denver. This year’s challenge, as discussed in my post of April 20, involved a re-envisioning of the Denver Coliseum property near I-70 and Brighton Boulevard in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood.

The challenge focused on a 46-acre site that included the Coliseum and its parking lots to the southwest toward Globeville Landing Park. The site sits at the crossroads of the redeveloping area north of Downtown that features nearby the RiNo arts district, future FasTracks transit stations, South Platte River amenities, and excellent highway access. One of the competition’s main assumptions was that the Coliseum had to remain the property of the city and continue as an entertainment venue. For all of the program’s rules and requirements, review the document included with the April 20 post.

Last night, over 600 people packed the ballroom at the Downtown Marriott to hear the two teams’ presentations and the selection of the winner. The result: the University of Colorado was victorious and snapped a four-year DU winning streak. Congratulations CU!  Both teams, however, put forth excellent presentations that offered innovative, yet different potential futures for the Coliseum area. I’m happy that DenverInfill is able to present both teams’ proposals from last night.

CU envisioned the site as the Denver Center for Creating Art, with the Coliseum reconfigured as a performance and rehearsal venue and new development providing space for the Art Institute of Colorado and other arts-related businesses. Below is CU’s proposed site plan and here are links to PDFs of CU’s executive summary (1.6 MB) and full presentation (14.7 MB).

2010 RMREC - CU Team Site Plan

DU, on the other hand, envisioned the site as the Frontier Center at the Denver Coliseum, a complex focused on “agri-tech” and alternative energy education and business development, with a conference center and incubator space for entrepreneurial businesses focused on these evolving industries. A site plan from the DU presentation is below, and here are links to PDFs of DU’s executive summary (0.6 MB) and full presentation (6.1 MB).

2010 RMREC - DU Team Site Plan

While both plans represent academic exercises only and do not necessarily reflect what will eventually be planned for the Coliseum, the potential for the site as described by both teams is exciting and gives Denver citizens and its leaders plenty to consider as the Coliseum area transforms into a vibrant extension of our urban core. Congratulations to the students from both schools, and many thanks to everyone at NAIOP and the City involved in organizing this year’s Rocky Mountain Real Estate Challenge and for their efforts to enhance the quality of both universities’ real estate programs and to promote excellence in Denver’s urban environment.

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Filed under Adaptive Reuse, Brownfield, Denver Neighborhoods, Events & Meetings, Infill, Plans & Policies.
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Lumberyards Project Proposed for South Denver

Posted by  on January 7, 2010

Real estate investor Jon Cook recently announced plans to build a major urban redevelopment project called The Lumberyards near South Broadway and West Jewell Avenue in Denver’s Overland neighborhood. The site is across South Santa Fe Avenue from Overland Golf Course and includes the former Shattuck Chemical property. The project would potentially begin in 2011 with an 8-story building and would be developed over a number of years as the market allows.  At full build-out, the Lumberyards project would include approximately 1,000 residential units, about 250,000 square feet of office space, and 150,000 square feet of retail. For more details on the project including a site map and conceptual renderings, please read this article from the Denver Post.

Here’s a bird’s eye view of the site from Bing maps:

2010-01-06_lumberyards_birdseye

The southwestern corner of the project area is a quarter-mile from the Evans light rail station on the Southwest line; a bit far to be considered a true Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), but close enough for it to be considered “transit proximate”, and certainly a selling point for the project overall.

The Lumberyards will have to compete with the other big TODs that didn’t get very far along during the last boom, like the Gates project just up the road at Broadway and I-25 and Continuum’s project at I-25 and Belleview. When the next boom finally arrives, TOD may be king of Denver development, with Downtown Denver serving as the biggest Transit-Oriented Development site around.

Overall, this is a good project and one that will hopefully succeed in offering additional housing opportunities for people who may want to live in a denser, urban environment, outside of the Downtown area.

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Filed under Brownfield, Denver Neighborhoods, Office, Residential, Retail, Transit-Oriented.
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Major Infill Project Planned for Denargo Market

Posted by  on October 5, 2006

In yesterday’s Rocky Mountain News, John Rebchook reported that Cypress Real Estate Advisors of Austin, TX has acquired the 29-acre Denargo Market site north of Downtown Denver, with plans to redevelop the site into as many as 2,200 residential units in buildings as tall as 22 stories. The Denargo Market area is an industrial enclave in the River North district with a land-that-time-forgot feel to it, yet it is only three-quarters of a mile from Union Station. The Denargo Market area represents the last significant area on the perimeter of Downtown Denver that hasn’t yet undergone a revitalization or transformation of some kind. Its redevelopment will essentially give Downtown a 360-degree ring of renovated, reinvented, or reenergized urban districts. Here’s the article from the News: Redevelopment Taking Shape. Here are a couple of preliminary renderings from the CB Richard Ellis website:

Site Plan:

Massing Image:

Another Massing Image (with what appears to be taller buildings than the image above):

What’s interesting about the middle image is that it shows in the background the massing of the full buildout of the Prospect district across the Park Avenue West viaduct and the Central Platte Valley/Riverfront Park/Union Station developments beyond that.

Finally, do you know where the word Denargo comes from? North of Downtown near the I-25/I-70 interchange of today was the little industrial neighborhood of Argo. The market’s founders took the first half of Denver and combined it with Argo—Denargo—in an effort to describe the market’s location half way between the two locations.

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Filed under Brownfield, Infill, Office, Residential, Retail, River North.
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